Cincinnati art 2

The modern art rooms of the Cincinnati Art Museum don't have a huge collection, but what they have is excellent.  On my recent visit I got to enjoy again some things by the all-star team.  Standing right next to one another were two paintings that I love, and I was taken by the dramatic difference in painting style between the two.

First is a big stain piece by Helen Frankenthaler, and then a big Robert Motherwell.  It struck me that I was spending a lot of time up close to both of these paintings, and thought you might like to see some details. 

Frankenthaler's, of course, is poured, with very dilute paint that seeps and wicks across the canvas.  I liked the effects where two colors meet.

Helen Frankenthaler, Rock Pond, 1962-63 (details below)

Motherwell's is heavily brushed, with underpainted marks that show dimly through the top layers of paint. Here are details of the alphabet-like shapes right under the black "window"  and the thin, sloppy lines and smudges around the edge of the window.

Robert Motherwell, Ochre with Black Window, 1973 (details below)

Lots more to tell you about later -- we've only just stepped into the first room!

Cincinnati art 1

I had a little expedition yesterday to Cincinnati, where we visited the Art Museum.  Can't recall how many times I have been to this great place but I always head straight for the modern art rooms and am always thrilled to revisit the same wonderful pieces. 

The first work of art you encounter is Lace Mountains, a huge wood piece by Ursula von Rydingsvard, whose main sculpture tool is a chain saw.  If you look at the detail shot, you can see how dramatically the surface has been indented and chopped to bits.  But if you stand back and look at it head-on, the 3-D effect almost disappears.

Ursula von Rydingsvard, Lace Mountains, 1989 (detail)

Ursula von Rydingsvard, Lace Mountains, 1989

I was visiting the museum with two friends, Marti Plager and Sandy Ciolino, both of whom have extensively used the fractured piecing technique I wrote about last week. Sandy pointed out that the distance view of Lace Mountains looked a lot like a quilt made with fractured piecing, and she was right!

Sandy Ciolino, Homage to Herbert, detail

What an unexpected moment of discovery, and what a treat to have it in the company of people who are so closely associated in my mind with this nifty technique.

Art-A-Day

December 12 -- holly

December 13 -- sunset

December 14 -- rya rug

December 15 -- globe

December 16 -- alstromeria

December 17 -- Christmas tree

December 18 -- river view

Waiting for THE SYSTEM to complete

I’ve always hated James Coburn as an actor; somehow his smartass persona always rubbed me the wrong way, no matter what role he was playing. And perhaps for that reason I have always been skeptical of the philosophy that sprang from his great movie The President’s Analyst, namely that the phone company is the root of all evil.

Until this week, that is.

I finally had to face up to the shortcomings of my internet provider of many years. Much as I love Dennis and Cody, who have patiently fielded so many of my calls for help (yes, I still got to talk to native-born American techies when I called tech support, and they work three miles from my home!) it was time for a divorce. My geek told me to take AT&T up on their recent offer of DSL service at a cheap introductory rate, so we called and said do it. They said the switchover would occur a week in the future and the tech would show up sometime between 8 and 5 to do it.

So imagine my surprise when the next morning I woke up to find no internet connection. My buddy Dennis told me that was because AT&T told them to pull the plug, they were taking over. (Then I had to apologize to Dennis for deserting him.)

Next I called AT&T. Yes, they pulled the plug, because my new service was to begin that very day. But they told me yesterday it would be next week. Yes, but we determined we could do it with the flick of a switch, no tech visit required, so good news, it’s happening today! That’s nice, but exactly when today? No idea. Why did you tell Dennis to pull the plug if you weren’t ready to flick the switch?

Because nobody knows exactly when THE SYSTEM is going to be ready.

Hold that thought – it will recur, and recur, and recur.  (I talked to eight different people plus three automatic voices; at least the automatic voices didn’t make me repeat the last four digits of my Social Security number as every one of the people did. And at least the automatic voices didn’t begin their remarks as the people did, by saying “it’s a wonderful day at AT&T, what can we do to make your day wonderful?”)

You could tell me how I will know when THE SYSTEM has actually flicked the switch.  One guy thought I could look at the red light on my modem, and when it turned green, I would know. Another guy said good news, it has already happened! I’ll transfer you to tech support and they’ll tell you what to type in on your end and you’re in business! The next guy said no it hadn’t already happened, and I would have to call tech support at some future moment and ask them. Should I do this every hour on the hour? No, wait till 8 or 9 pm or maybe even later but I swear to you it will be done by “the end of the calendar day.”

One woman told me THE SYSTEM hadn’t completed the order. What did it need to complete it, I asked, several times, and if you don’t know, who does? Finally she snapped back at me, I don’t know what THE SYSTEM needs, all I know is that THE SYSTEM hasn’t completed the order, there is nobody you can talk to, you just have to wait for THE SYSTEM to complete!

As the day wore on I still had no internet connection, and although I wasn’t even yet a customer of AT&T I was feeling really bad about the possibility of becoming one. But I like to look for deeper meaning in the unfair stupidities of daily life, and I have chosen to focus on that profound statement: “there is nobody you can talk to, you just have to wait for THE SYSTEM to complete!”

This is the dilemma that faces us in so many contexts at so many times in our wondrous technology-assisted lives. We didn’t die in our 52 internet-free hours, although I was appalled to realize how many ordinary tasks were thwarted because our connection was down. A winter storm bore down on us and my husband couldn’t check the weather radar. A crossword puzzle stalled and I couldn’t google the four look-up-able clues. I couldn’t post to my blog or check email. And all my indignant attempts to talk to a human being and demand justice were total failures. This sort of thing happens to us a lot – the city won’t clear snow from our street, the power goes out as frequently as in third-world nations, our senators are neanderthals, my new allegedly Antarctic-strength gloves couldn’t keep my fingers warm for ten minutes -- and a responsible human being, let alone justice, is beyond our grasp.

To stay sane, you have to find the right balance between the quest for justice and serene acceptance of the inevitable frustrations of life.  Perhaps that’s why so much of my art has to do with the fragility of the bonds that hold our society together. There is nobody you can talk to, you just have to wait for THE SYSTEM to complete.

Quilt Date for December

Time for another quilt date, and if you don't like this guy, too bad because I'm going out of the matchmaking business at the end of the year.  Next year I'll try a different theme for my periodical forays into pedagogy and art inspiration.  But first, here's Mr. December, fresh from the orthopedic ward.

Yes, Mr. December is all about fractures.  One of the recurring pleasures and challenges of quiltmaking, in my opinion, is how to make your work complicated (which makes it more interesting) without spending the rest of the century at the sewing machine.  I'm an expert at time-consuming complication, but every now and then I get a kick out of shortcuts like this technique.

As my examples of this technique, I will turn to my friend Marti Plager, who has had a long-running dalliance with Mr. December.  She has most frequently used fractured blocks as the background for pictorial or semi-pictorial quilts, like these.

Marti Plager, Primrose Passion

Marti Plager, Along the Banks #2







With a minimum of fuss, you too can construct fractured blocks that combine several different fabrics and look deliciously complicated. 

Start by choosing many fabrics and cut them into squares or rectangles of the same size.  Then assemble sets of different fabrics -- three or five in a set give the most variation.

Stack your set in a pile, align the edges carefully, then slice through all of them at an angle and separate the two halves of the pile.  Take the top piece off one of the piles and move it to the bottom.  Then sew each pair of halves back together.  You now have as many reconstructed blocks as you started with.

You can use these two-piece blocks in your composition as is, or you can restack the blocks, turn them 90 degrees and repeat the process to make four-piece blocks.  For greater variation in fabrics, make a  lot of two-piece blocks, then reshuffle them into new stacks of three or five before you make your second cuts.

I've done it both ways, but think it's best if all your cuts are made at the same angle -- either northwest to southeast or northeast to southwest.  After you've made a project or two, maybe you'll want to experiment with mixing the two directions for more visual excitement.  For a very controlled look, you may want to mark your cutting board with painter's tape so you cut all the blocks at exactly the same angle, but I think it's just fine to eyeball it.  I also like to vary the placement of the cuts from set to set -- sometimes make one half of the stack quite skinny, as in the photo above, sometimes run the slice smack through the middle of the block.

Depending on how you choose the fabrics for each set of blocks, you can achieve a wide variety of color effects.  For instance, you can make dark blocks and light blocks, or mix the values in every block.

Or, as Marti has done, while you have an interior seam open, you can insert a little sliver of contrast color before you sew the fractured block back together.

Marti Plager, Games: Jacks

Marti Plager, The Vineyard

If you like this technique, here are some ideas for the second date:

•  Combine two-piece blocks with four-piece blocks.

•  Make fractured blocks in different shapes and sizes, then combine them.

•  Try different color strategies, or different proportions of colors in your mix.

•  Or anything else that strikes your fancy.

Let me know how it works out. If you want to send me a picture of what you made, I’ll post it.  Enjoy your date!

Stealing your idea

Much talk on the Quiltart list this week about people who visit a vendor's booth and announce cheerfully, "I'm going to steal your idea!"  Everybody responded predictably, how awful.  But one person wrote something that bothered me:

When you do shows and gallery walks there is always the group of people who are there only to steal ideas. My DH was great at spotting those....the ones who stood outside the booth with a paper and pencil sketching off ideas since they knew cameras were not allowed. He would casually walk up to them and stand right in front of them, saying nothing. If they tried to move around him, he would casually move back in front of them. I don't remember that he ever said a word but they got the message.

I was bothered because I have been the person sketching something from somebody's booth, and I wasn't doing it to steal her idea.  I was doing it because something about the design or the pattern intrigued me, and sketching it was a good way to figure out just what was intriguing.  I do the same thing in museums, if I can't take a picture or buy a postcard of the picture I like, and indeed sketching is a time-honored method of appreciating the art on view in such venues.  In fact it would be a pretty pathetic museum or gallery walk or art show if no ideas ever made their way into viewers' heads, even without money changing hands.  And art history would be a lot shorter course if artists had never allowed other people's ideas to infiltrate their own sensibility and influence their work.

When I was the person making a sketch at this art show, I never sold a replica of her stuff, or made a replica of her stuff, or published my sketch of her stuff, or often even looked at the sketch after I came home from the show.  The sketch was an activity of the moment, meant to crystallize some concept that struck my fancy.  I suppose I could have just stood there in her booth staring for five minutes, but her husband probably would have come over and intimidated me in some other manner.

Let's agree to begin with that stealing designs is bad, and that when an artist realizes that has happened on a commercial scale, it's probably worth it to seek redress.  But is it worth it to assume preemptively that everybody looking at your stuff closely is doing it with the intent of ripping you off?  If so, then don't display your work in public.

I wonder whether the people who work so hard to jealously guard their ideas are doing it to good effect.  Are their products so unique, so special, so fabulously lucrative that industrial espionage is their greatest business challenge?  And couldn't any industrial spy worth her salt get an image of anything she wanted without lurking out in the aisle at the show?  Go to the vendor's website or etsy store and grab a screen shot; at the worst case, buy one and take a picture of it. 

Even people who sketch designs with the intent of making one themselves usually don't or can't follow through.  And if they did, so what?  People with the skill to actually copy your work can probably do so without a sketch, just by looking.  Would it be a better business strategy to approach the sketcher and say "I'm so glad you like this stuff!  If you decide you want to buy some, here's my business card!  Thanks for stopping by!"

No, send your husband out to give people the hairy eyeball. Even if you have totally misjudged the person with the pencil -- like maybe it was me having a private art moment -- act in a hostile manner on general principles.  That's a good use of his time and a good business strategy.