blog – Page 19 – Deidre Adams

Christo & Jeanne-Claude, 12 Voices opening

Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who were here in conjunction with their Prints and Objects exhibition currently on view at the Center for the Visual Arts in Denver. Christo and Jeanne-Claude are legendary for their environmental works done on a massive scale, the most recent of which was the Gates project in New York’s Central Park. I had also gone to the exhibition the day before as part of a class field trip, wondering beforehand what kind of things they did that could possibly be small enough to fit in this venue. It turns out that the items on exhibit are not standalone works of art, but they are preparatory sketches, limited-edition prints, and photographs all relating to their large-scale works.

The lecture consisted of a short screen presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. They showed images of several projects from the research stage, through drawings and sketches of the proposed project, and photos of meetings with local residents and officials in the vicinity of the proposed project. The scope of planning and logistics of these projects is simply mind-boggling. The time frame for a single project can span many years from initial concept to finished work. For example, the web page for The Gates lists the years as 1979-2005, a span of 26 years!

By far the most interesting part of the event was at the end when they took questions from the audience. Jeanne-Claude did most of the talking, and she stressed that everything they do is done from the heart, for the sheer joy and beauty that it gives them personally. The work is not done for others, but if others enjoy it, that’s a bonus. (Something many of us know intuitively that we should also strive for, but it’s often a struggle.)

12 Voices opening

12 Voices exhibition at the Dennos Museum Center

On Sept. 13, I attended the opening reception for 12 Voices, at the Dennos Museum Center in Traverse City, Michigan. The Museum Center is a beautiful venue, and the show was hung with good attention to flow and with plenty of room for each piece to be appreciated on its own as well as in context with its neighbors. Seven of the twelves artists were able to attend: Judith Content (the current SAQA president), Joan Schulze, Ginny Smith, Merle Axelrad Serlin, Kathy Weaver, and Teresa Barkley, and me. (I got to be roommates with Joan and Teresa, and getting to know them was a definite highlight of the trip. More on that later.)

Penny McMorris, the 12 Voices curator, gave a marvelous lecture on the artists and the work in the show. It was wonderful to hear the inside story on these artists (even though I knew a lot of it from working on the catalog) as well as Penny’s own interpretation on the work. I was fascinated to hear what she had to say about my own work, as it provided some insights that I hadn’t thought about but realized were absolutely true.

Nelson Armour, Kathy Weaver’s husband, took some great photos at the opening (thanks, Nelson!). Above is a photo he took of me next to my piece, Composition IV. To the left is Linda Colsh’s Cold Shoulder.

This is Teresa Barkley with me at the reception (photo also by Nelson Armour). The Dennos put on a great spread, with wonderful food and wine, before the lecture. All in all, it was a great trip. I spent a couple extra days there exploring the area; more on that later.

September 24th, 2008|Exhibitions|1 Comment

Where does the time go?

Good intentions out the window. Distractions abound. So many things needing to get done, paralysis sets in. My goal of doing at least one post per week is woefully unfulfilled, but does anyone besides me care? I promised myself I would not use the blog to whine or to navel-gaze, though, so no excuses.

One of the things we try to do every summer is go on a photographic scouting road trip. Due to me taking a summer class, though, and fall semester starting way early this year, a road trip just didn’t happen. But the good news is, I have lots of photos from past trips that I need to do something with. So I’ll start posting some of these on a regular basis.

The above was taken on last year’s trip. The location is in eastern Wyoming, on a 2-lane highway, slightly north of a town called Douglas. The clouds were looking quite photogenic that day. The above image is enhanced in my very favorite toy, Photoshop Lightroom. I recently upgraded to version 2.0; still need to figure out all the great new stuff it does. But in the meantime, you can do some very amazing things to your images, all non-destructively and completely reversible.

Below is the original image:

It’s not horrible, but the clouds look rather flat and the whole thing needs some punch. A few quick tweaks in Lightroom, and the added contrast results in the top image — much more interesting. I love Photoshop, but it does have a steep learning curve and simple editing tasks take a lot longer. For quick editing and amazing organizational capabilities, Lightroom is the way to go.

And you can push it a lot further to get some very creative effects. Here’s an experiment with the parameters taken well beyond “normal” limits:

Other fun activities this week included getting my Quilt National entry in just under the wire (due date Sept. 5), and shipping my work for the 12 Voices show, which opens next week at the Dennos Museum Center in Traverse City. Also, tomorrow is the opening for Threadlines 2008, an exhibit sponsored by Uncommon Threads at the Missouri State University Art & Design Gallery, September 5-29, 2008, co-organized by Pam RuBert and Emmie Seaman. My piece, Chroma Study #2: Blue and Red, will be a part of the exhibition.

September 4th, 2008|Photography|7 Comments

Papermaking part II

One of the most interesting aspects of the hand-papermaking process has been taking raw plant fibers and turning them into paper. This is an intensely laborious process, which the class experienced firsthand. The fiber can be green or dried, but it must be cooked for up to several hours in an alkali (most commonly soda ash or lye) solution. Some fibers are helped along by first going through a “retting,” or fermentation process. This can be as simple as just leaving them outside on the ground for a couple of months through the fall and/or winter, or as complex as creating a special container that stays outside in the heat and must be monitored and stirred regularly.

The class collected iris, both fresh and dried, cattail leaves and catkins (I had to look up the word!), and a big bag of corn husks from the grocery store. I contributed a load of dried daylily leaves that I had used to store some bulbs in the basement last winter. Since I already have a large quantity of soda ash from my fabric dyeing days, I volunteered to do some cooking.

It’s best to do this outside if possible. After first experimenting with a hot plate, we found the most efficient way to get the necessary heat was on the gas burner of our propane grill. These are the cooked iris and daylily fibers, above. The iris, since it was green, took only a little over an hour to cook, while the dried daylily leaves took over 3 hours.

After that, it’s tons of rinsing to get rid of all the soda ash plus the non-cellulose materials that have cooked out of the fiber. My husband, who is incredibly supportive of all my crazy art schemes, helped me with this, and models the iris during the rinsing process, above. The color started out looking very much like asparagus. I hoped it would stay that way for the paper, but sadly, it faded to pastel. I felt really bad about all the water we used for rinsing, but at least we did most of it on the grass.

After cooking and rinsing comes beating. Some of this was done with the Hollander beater, some with blenders, but a great deal of it was done by hand with baseball bats, various mallets, and meat tenderizers. (This photo was taken by Carrol Reeves, my friend from class, who became our unofficial photographer.) The hand beating took many hours, and everyone participated in it at some point. To test for doneness, you take a pinch from a couple of different areas of your pile, put them in a jar with a lot of water, and shake it up. When all the fibers move freely without clumping, it’s done and ready to be made into paper.

<tangent alert>
Since taking this class, I’ve got my own opinion now that the terms “art quilter” and “fiber artist” are in no way synonymous. In quilting and textile work, artists are dealing pretty much only with fabrics and threads which have already been manufactured in a mill or factory somewhere else. In papermaking, we are dealing with fibers on a much lower level, working with the raw plant material in some cases, processing the fibers from scratch into a material that can then be made into art. I think that unless I start incorporating “fibers” other than fabric and thread into my work, it is not appropriate to call myself a “fiber artist.” I welcome your thoughts on this topic.
</tangent>

July 31st, 2008|Art|3 Comments