Continuing the challenge

Last month I introduced my variant of the 100 day challenge. My method, constraints and goals remain the same.

#14 – Attempting more control

#15 – pen with watercolour drawing, wash over.
According to my notes this was based on Michele Webber video(s).

#16 – using Akim script. Text from a letter by my dad, who loved bushwalking and bird watching. I put buttons on the drying base, but the texture is hardly visible.

#17 – Clingfilm gathered in lines over drying paint. Splatter.

#18 – Crushed clingfilm over drying paint. Dip pen & watercolour marking over. The “feature” colour of this sample is Opal Blue. Over the project I’ve come to see the “shiny” colours as a particular strength and opportunity in the range. There are nine metallics, six pearls and six opals, and they can really bring some zing.

#19 More controlled washes.
I’ve been watching so many YouTube videos, and there is such an overlap, that I haven’t been able to credit everything. However this is definitely based on a Natasha Newton video.

#20 – wet paint moved by blowing with a straw

#21 – table salt sprinkled over drying paint

#22 – Given the chosen constraints, I’ve found myself taking more and more liberties with the concept of “matching” colours. In this case both the paint and the colour book used the name “Cerulean Blue” for distinctly different colours. This was painted wet on wet, with a stencil put on the surface as it dried. I’m sure others use this technique, but I haven’t seen it around so regard it as “my invention”.

#23 – The Yellow Gold paint was matched to Yellow Orange in the colour book (which doesn’t include any metallics). It was painted onto an old wooden textile printing block and stamped over the dry base colours.

#24 – Mark making with a dry brush

#25 – Sanzo Wada’s second volume of color combinations includes some photos of inspiration items. This design is based on the original cloth.

#26 – Watercolour bubbles, using detergent liquid. There are quite a few video channels showing this technique.

#27 – Some cut strips of craft foam were used as masks. Watercolour dabbed on using cosmetic sponge.

#28 – Base used wet on wet, with brush end used to create marks. A wooden textile block was stamped over the dry paint. On the left a full print using the feature “Graphite Red”. On the right the same block, with selected areas painted with green.

#29 – The base was crinkled clingfilm over drying paint. The feature colour was Opal Green, applied using the bubble technique. I hoped darker colours in the background would highlight the opal bubble texture, however the base layer was reactivated as the bubbles dried. In life the opal appears more as a sheen.

#30 – This was another swatch influenced by an image in the colour book. The marks are influenced by Kory’s Art Cafe. The feature colour is Pearl Scarlet Red – almost all the colour lost in the photograph, but not the original.

#31 – Candle wax as a resist. Love the texture

#32 – Another stencil laid on wet paint. The stencil is a field of thickly outlined circles, which didn’t move the paint as well as the thin circles of #22. Of course lots of other factors may have been in play.

#33 – Based on a colour book image. Definitely not working with my strengths.

#34 – I love the colours and textures of this. The thinner stencil lines worked well, as I’d hoped. However a big technical fail. All the earlier stencils I’ve tried were cut from yupo. This one was cardstock – and stuck to the page. I’ll have to recut it (yay for having a Silhouette Cameo!).

#35 – This used Steve Mitchell’s wet on dry technique for spontaneous watercolours, as shown on the Strathmore Papers channel. Fascinating.

#36 – More wet on dry, with greater colour contrast.

#37 And again! This time the tricky red-green colour palette was able to avoid Christmassy vibes.
To me the Akim script works well in combination, providing more texture and not easily read. The text is a quote from Charlotte Wood.

#38 – Another wet on wet with (yupo!) stencil laid over. I scribbled some marks into the wet paint using a brush end.

#39 – another wooden block, stamped multiple times and deliberately not registered.
It’s very difficult to see in the photo, but opal pink was used on just the flower of the block, and stamped in the spaces between the main prints. In life it gives a subtle damask effect.

#40 – This uses a technique from Ginger McElfresh, removing dry watercolour with a baby wipe through a stencil.

#41 – Another wet on dry. Oh I love this technique. The feature colour was Blue Gold, which I matched to Ivory Buff in the colour book. I kept the colour palette simple – the gold, and a combination of Purple and Cobalt Violet – some mixed in the palette, some on the page. It’s so pretty.

#42 – I used a dip pen, with watercolour applied to the nib with a brush (as in some previous swatches). The marks are based on letters from the Akim script.

That brings me up to date (today’s swatch is still in progress). After a bumpy period I’m more regular with the daily rhythm. A few techniques I want to take further:

  • Akim script
    • to add text
    • forms repeated to create texture
  • Stencils
    • on drying paint
    • to remove dried paint
  • Spontaneous wet on dry

100 day challenge-ish

My current project is based on a YouTube video by Lisbeth Degn – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hSDipmKW8s

Lisbeth selects a colour palette from A Dictionary of Color Combinations – a collection originated by Sanzo Wada. Lisbeth then selects the closest matches from her boxes of Kuretake watercolours. She uses these, plus some mark-making and collage, working in a series.

I’ve now got that book, plus Volume 2 which has some larger colour sets and also some based on textiles and interior design. I was also able to get a combination set of all 100 Kuretake colours. My project “rules” have taken a while to settle in.

  • Select a “target” colour from the Kuretake paints
  • Find the best match to Sanzo Wada’s colours (159 in the first book, augmented to 171 in the second)
  • Select a Sanzo Wada combination using the matched colour.
  • For the additional colours in the combination, I use either a single Kuretake colour or a mix of 2.
  • Use on 12 x 16 cm watercolour paper
  • Goal is exploration and learning of materials and colour combinations, not finished work.

Work in progress.

Target colour Kuretake #30 Cadmium Red.
Matched to Sanzo Wada Spectrum Red.
Other colours in his combo are Grayish Lavender, Blue Violet, Seashell pink.
Mixes of paint were used to get something close.

I haven’t “formally” joined the 100dayproject, but I feel an affinity given timing and the coincidence of 100 colours.

Enough words. I’ve done 13 so far.

Still more hex weave questions

The exploration continues. Here a compilation of notes and lessons learnt along the way.

  • Can I improvise in hexagonal weave?

I started with two sheets created during a Process Art session. Both include text from my Intention.

Set off weaving in hexagons, throwing in some pentagons (decreases) and heptagons (increases), simply looking to create an open shape. Then started aiming to turn the edges towards each other, joining and closing – like suturing a wound? Chanting “trust the structure”.

A new insight – watch the parallel lines – the sweep of history.

Held the faith, and everything joined up – not always easily or entirely comfortably. There is shaping through pentagon & heptagon, and also by taking advantage of “give” in the material. The light reflections look fabulous.

Layer 2 was an absorbing pleasure.

– loving the irushizuku colours & velvety surface 
– If I couldn’t see where a strip should go, I walked away for a while. Later realised an earlier strip had a long skip. Cut that to correct – & found one end met with my original “problem” strip. An easy, accurate fix. Better than fault free, to be able to recover.
– leads to:  confidence in fixing. Join & splice. –> can glue & get rid of confusing ends, knowing it’s not entirely locked in.
– bent nose tweezers as tool: guide; slide; push from behind
– Layer 2 takes significantly more material, moving through the surface, front to back.

I used every scrap of the large layer 2 sheet, then dug out some shredded silver paper from the stash. Used a long ball-head, slit-at-end bodkin – it was much faster “stitching” through, plus demonstrated that structural stability comes from layer 1. Layer 2 is more decorative, opening material possibilities.

In real life the silver strips bring light and reveal the individual paths taken.

  • Material exploration – leftover strips from spiral bound watercolour paper.
  • Material exploration: looking for light but stable structure – joomchi-like mulberry paper “felting” (using skills from a class with Angela Liddy in 2016).

– used a metal bowl, snippets of painter’s tape, and gravity, building layer 1. The bowl also supported the form while it dried.

Light, stable, beautiful shadows.

  • Thinking about reading:
    Brian Dillon essay On the fragment in Essayism
    p 67 “the fragment stands alone but speaks … to the fragments that surround it.”; p 68 mentions “a repetition or rhyme between the further fragments.”; p 69 ”the problem of pattern”…
    • A response:
      • print text quotes onto mid-weight paper (Canson 200 gsm Imagine. A3.)
      • cut using Cameo –> layer 2 with writing you can follow a bit
      • To suggest fragments, on layer 1 printed a photo of a runner woven in rosepath – for my mother, and based on her Turkish rug.
    • Weaving notes
      • “pre-curl” paper strips to avoid kinks / creases
      • ink jet smears – careful of wet hands and glue spread
      • printing on A3 & proper software settings
      • love the photo & text levels of meaning
        • think about line spacing (avoid blank strip)
        • [also font & font size]
      • two-ended cones worked

Overall I did as planned, but it feels more like a start, not an answer. The photo on layer 1 has little impact – the colour isn’t rich enough.

  • Most of my forms have grown from a flat woven area.
    • start from the open top by making a flat strip & joining into a tube.
    • But which way? vertical; horizontal bands?
    • Love this “simple” structure keeps throwing out possibilities.

There were lots of experiments, but none progressed beyond the messy fiddling stage.

  • Making more of a photograph.
    • Aiming at a “faceted vase” form

This started with a photo of sunset near Mount Borradaile.

– Layer 1 in 300 gsm for strength. Sprayed in iroshizuku inks, trying to pick up the pale blue-green of the sky – but got it badly wrong. Strips cut using pasta machine.
– Layer 2 photograph printed on 200 gsm paper. Cut down A2 paper to width that would go through printer. Printed photo on both sides. Each side run through printer from both ends to use full length (unable to find settings that would print long length in a single go). Strips cut on Cameo, slightly narrower than layer 1.

At first I was thinking of a fractured image, but found myself fiddling about to get more flow of colour.

Overall it’s not what I was looking for: the shape looks lumpy; layer 1 has more impact, but detracts rather than enhancing; there was a lot of fussing about, splicing together bits of strips; fundamentally, it doesn’t give me anything new, it doesn’t take the photo anywhere. Even so, if I look at it without expectations I find it intriguing.

More hexagonal weave

The on-going obsession. Projects and learning (and I should point out all this is provisional – my current level of understanding, with lots more to learn):

  • aka “sparse triaxial weave”.
    For comparison, below is a sample of dense triaxial weave.
  • A response to Three Crafts by Eavan Boland.

The crafts in this poem I interpret as spinning, basketry (the weaving of a currach), and writing (Boland’s own craft). I copied the text onto 50 gsm bank layout paper, put through the shredder, and used hex weave to create a coracle-like form. Weaving began with a central pentagon. The result is light and translucent.

  • Cones

It was a surprise when my class sample finished neatly in a cone form (photo at left). Growing up from the base, just before that central band there were two pentagon decreases, as far apart as possible. Continuing in hex, weavers met in a gentle arch, closing with four pentagons at the top.

Could I turn this upside down – start with four pentagons and grow up/out in a cone? Yes!

So could I then join the individual cones into a larger piece of weaving? My original idea was something like a 3 legged cooking pot. The intended bowl part didn’t happen, it’s a more organic sort of form – but yes, cones were made and then joined.

  • How about hex weave as an extension of Process Art (as taught by Jackie Schomburg)

Usually I would write an Intention in my journal, then work separately on the creative part of the Process. This time I copied the Intention large, on watercolour paper, then used alcohol markers in a free creation responding to the lines of the text.

I wrote a Witness at the end as usual.

Later I painted the back Payne’s Grey, put it through the paper shredder, and started weaving. The weaving took lots of sessions over the week. I wrote the original Intention on a card and often re-read it. I also did more Witness writing over the time (without referring back to earlier Witnesses – each felt independent).

Given I’m still learning the technique and trying out ideas, there was a lot of un-weaving as well as weaving. In the end I developed a small bowl, and with leftover material experimented with a twisted form.

The bowl started with a single hexagon, then a round of alternating pentagons and hexagons. A later round of heptagons opened out the rim.

On the enclosed form the shaping pentagons at the top are deliberately offset from those at the bottom, causing a subtle twist.

  • The Eureka! form.

This is a simplification of the single hexagon base, done in scraps of shredded copy paper from the leftover bag.

It was tricky weaving with the relatively flimsy paper. Layer 1 in yellow, red and blue. 3 inserts of each, watching colour interactions.

Layer 2 was I think old gelli prints. Near the end, I checked inside to see the red/yellow/blue. Which was basically hidden.

The colour effects taught by Ann, as seen in the pink and green cone-top at the beginning of this post, are a particular, clever, outcome of the choice of a two coloured material used on both layers. Great for a beginner class and – as as one option going on. I mistakenly assumed that more of layer 1 shows on one side of the finished weave, and more of layer 2 shows on the reverse side.

Instead layer 1 becomes the inner layer, and is almost entirely covered by layer 2 – the outer layer on both sides of the weave. The inner layer is only seen in those tiny triangles, which are framed by the strips of the outer layer 2. I felt I was standing under a thumping waterfall of ideas.

  • Sixpenny weave

Sixpenny is a wonderful restaurant in an inner suburb of Sydney. It offers a tasting menu, different each day, based on seasonal produce sourced from their garden and small providers, with minimal waste. It’s been hard to get the family together this year, so we took our boys there early December for a year’s worth of celebrations. At the end of the evening the restaurant gave us printed copies of the menu (earlier each dish was presented with a verbal description by the chefs). Could I make a memento in hex weave, featuring the eureka! form (simple elegance, showing the hand and ethos of the maker, like the restaurant)?

The deep blue envelope provided layer 1, the inner layer.

The menu stationery showed a botanical print on one side of the menu, the typed menu on the other. I was conscious of my new colour-in-hex understanding to take advantage of both sides.

Another innovation was using my Silhouette Cameo to cut the strips. In class Ann used a pasta machine. At home I started with an office paper shredder. The Cameo is slower but much more precise, whatever width I choose, and very little waste or distortion.

  • Next question – can I abandon symmetry, scale up, improvise? I’m currently discovering the answer.

Hexagonal Weaving

In November Ann McMahon gave a one-day workshop on Hexagonal Weaving, organised by Basketry NSW. It was wonderful – magical, eye-opening, inspiring, with so many possibilities… and also at times frustrating and confusing. It was a long, full, well run day – and not enough! This is the object I began in the class and finished a week or so later:

The paper is pink on one side, green on the other. The pink facing out is the first layer of weaving. The green is the second layer – I stopped it part-way, partly for reference and partly because I like the look.

Ann set us up for success:

  • A focus on guiding each person towards a finished object based on their interests and starting skill level
  • A beautiful materials kit including some key components
    • 300 gsm watercolour paper, pre-painted front and back by Ann in a range of colours, and pre-cut in strips.
    • A little fine tip bottle of glue
    • A handful of small copper clips
    • plus some starter notes, threads etc. It brings extra pleasure to a process when you’re working with such quality items.
  • Demonstrations, lots of individual attention, plus sorting out our tangles when things Just Wouldn’t Sit Right.

Back home alone I found myself full of ideas, but struggling with basics. Finally I’ve made myself a series of samples – not finished objects but what I think/hope are the building blocks. Here I give excruciating detail, for my own learning and reference, but possibly of use to others.

First a reminder – Paper woven in standard plain weave. Two sets of strips / weavers, set at right angles. They are woven together in a pattern of under then over. I’m using different colours for each set of strips, hoping for clarity.

In hexagonal weaving there are three set of weavers, set at 60 degrees to each other. Each strip alternates under / over. My strips are yellow/orange; blue/green; red/purple.

Tuck them snugly together. I printed off a 60 degree grid to help get my eye in.

Start adding more strips. One of the magic things about this weave is that things snug or nestle together. The spacing between the yellow strips is set by the cross of the other colours.

The second red goes in, under and over.

Auditioning placement for the second blue. Coming down from top right, it will go over yellow, under red, over yellow, under red.

A critical thing to note is that the red and yellow cross just past the blue. In the weaving there is a “lift and lock” motion. It completes the first hexagon of the weave, continues the over/under pattern of each strip, and adds some stability.

As more weavers are added, keep them aligned – parallel and evenly spaced – with their set. Make sure each strip continues going over and under, including the “lift and lock” as each hexagon is completed.

The number of hexagons grows as weavers are added. Around them are incomplete areas, with 4 or 5 sides in place.

Flip it over and you have the same structure, but the colours on the underside of the strips.

Normally you’d continue working on the first layer of weaving, maybe even finishing the basic form. For this sample, I’m moving on to the second layer.

The second layer laces through the hexagonal spaces, at right angles to the first layer. At my beginner level you use the same strips but the other side up. Here I’m auditioning my orange/yellow strips, that will go at right angles to the yellow in layer one.

Here they are, woven in. They alternate up and down through the hexagons, nestling into the sides.

That snug nestling seems a tiny detail but is critical. If you get it right things just work. Get it wrong and life is miserable.

Here’s an example of WRONG. DON’T DO THIS.

Again – the photo above is Wrong. The orange strip can’t nestle in because of the way the red and blue are crossing. Orange can’t go neatly, straight up and down, perpendicular to the yellow. Look again at the photo before this. A simple change to when the orange goes over and under in the hexagons makes all the different.

Let’s stick with all these colours just a moment longer. Green will be laced in at right angles to the blue in the first layer.

Then purple at right angles to the red.

Let’s lose the colour. I made a new set of strips, one side yellow the other blue. Below layer one shows the blue side. The beginning of layer two has yellow facing up.

So far, this is the way I like to start layer two. Get two weavers in for each direction. Check: they are at right angles to one of the sets of weavers in layer one; that they are nestling into layer 1, snuggling into those crosses; the pairs of layer two are sitting neatly parallel, and alternating up and down through the hexagons of layer 1.

In the sample above there’s one hexagon in the middle that has all its area of layer 2 in place. Layer 2 forms its own smaller hexagon, rotated (so here it has a point at the top, while layer 1 has a line at the top). All the strips of layer 2 sit snuggly to the side – if ever you have a strip going across the middle, you have a problem to fix. The strips of that hexagon of layer 2 form a very neat spiral or star.

With this in place it’s much easier to continue layer 2. With each new weaver make sure it runs parallel to an existing layer 2 set. Keep the pattern of alternating under and over. Do that, and always put the new weaver into the centre of each hexagon, and the nestling will just happen.

In the next photo I audition placement of my next weaver/strip.

It slots neatly into place.

I’ve filled the sample. Below you can see the small hexagons of layer 2.

The two layers interact with a new pattern emerging. In the completed central area small triangles of intersecting strips of Layer 1 (blue) can be seen. They are framed by triangles of yellow layer 2 strips.

Turn the work over. The overall pattern is the same on both sides, with colours flipped. Except for that orange – I accidentally used some of yellow/orange strips instead of yellow/blue. Something to play with more deliberately.

There are two ways I know of to move into 3D. Weaving a pentagon creates a corner or decrease. A heptagon (also called septagon) creates an increase.

In a photo near the top I showed that areas with incomplete hexagons have 4 or 5 sides. In the photo below a blue weaver is being added. Two hexagons have been locked in. Where the new blue ends there are only 5 strips.

A pentagon is formed.

The blue weaver turns the corner, changing direction. The two yellow strips are forced to cross and lock, also changing direction.

The same work from another angle. Shadows show the new shaping created by the pentagon.

Below another blue weaver has been added. It follows the curve of the previous blue. In the magic (maths?) of this structure, it’s all hexagons again.

Here is another weaving at the same point. The blue row shows where the pentagon was made. The

You can fine-tune the shaping to a squarer corner by creasing rather than curving strips.

I’m not going to show detail of putting in layer 2. See all the tips above – put in guide weavers in a flat area; make sure everything is nestling and snug; watch for spirals/stars; watch for the developing pattern of framed triangles. Be prepared to take bits out and try again.

In the centre of the photo below, just above the blue strip that forced the corner, you can see that layer 2 also forms a pentagon.

The photo also gives a good view of the clips provided by Ann. I’ve also tried various hair clips and pins. It’s worth seeing what you can find, to keep work in progress under some control.

Below the work is flipped over. Another interesting shape.

It occurred to me that in the places which already have 5 weavers, you can just cross 2 to create a pentagon. As far as I can see the final structure is the same, although it seems easier to get more a bowl effect rather than a sharp corner.

Now to the heptagon. At an edge point with 5 weavers I added two more (in green). The over/under pattern is maintained. Look how the work rears off the table.

Another weaver is added, and again hexagons appear automatically.

Here layer 2 is in orange, and forms a heptagon spiral/star.

I have no advice on shaping with combinations of multiple increases or decreases, nor on edge treatments or different materials and sizes. It’s all still to learn. However below I show my first independent work. It’s in 200 gsm mixed media paper, coloured with iroshizuku inks. There are both pentagons and heptagons shaping it. It was a bit of a nightmare, in particular putting in layer 2 at the shoulder and base of the neck – leading to the need for all these samples!

You can see some of Ann’s work following the link at https://networksaustralia.blogspot.com/p/networks-members.html. It includes a photo of her Ship of Fools, a major piece of hexagonal weave.

Enough?

“Our whole artistic journey might be understood as the process of convincing ourselves that we do, in fact, have enough, figuring out what that is, then refining it.” That’s from George Saunders, in A Swim in a Pond in the Rain – a version of Saunders’ university class on 19th century Russian short stories. The focus of the program is to help students achieve “their ‘iconic space’ … using what makes them uniquely themselves – their strengths, weaknesses, obsessions, peculiarities, the whole deal” – “to become defiantly and joyfully themselves.” Saunders believes we contain multitudes, can take many voices, but the one to find is that which brings the most energy. It comes from what you are not what or who you want to be. His process is “intuition plus iteration”. A draft is a starting point. Read it, monitor your reaction to each sentence, changing it as appropriate. Every element should have purpose, should add to the whole.

Inspiring – and it aligns amazingly well with the advice of visual artists I admire such as Jackie Schomburg and Louise Fletcher. This is what I want for myself. October has felt strong and purposeful, doing the work, finding where I get energy, attempting to refine it. Sometimes there is more fear and frustration than joy. This is one of those days, but my inner mongrel and I are facing down the inner critic, and will celebrate the work, if not the Work.

Last month I showed a monochrome collage which I thought had elements of promise.

I like the space and light of my new version. There are fewer components, and more cohesion, better connections.

My next couple of attempts were fine I guess, but the energy isn’t there for me.

The attempt above was for the challenge “Solid colours/subtle texture”. I suspect I misinterpreted the challenge, but in any case flat colour is not for me. I think my heart wasn’t in it, and it shows. (Although I love that ink line from the conical nib.)

The botanical gelli prints on the left were inspired by Lisbeth Degn. The collage looks static and pedestrian.

Then there were a couple of things where I asked what seemed to be interesting questions – but found I didn’t have good answers. Yet. Maybe.

There was more work with the beautiful Kakimori dip nibs, the gorgeous iroshizuku inks, and a wide variety of papers. Lots of samples, more supple wrist movement – plus focus and pleasure.

Working in series at a small scale, relatively quickly, intensely, and with selected constraints supports a mixed media version of Saunders’ “intuition plus iteration” process.

A series of collages, 6 elements on a 21 x 21 cm square. This is based on an exercise from Lisbeth Degn, modified to monochrome and different shapes. (thanks again to fellow explorer Traci)

I definitely seek movement, an active balance.

An ongoing series, working on A6 card, aiming to improve my observational skills and to extend “my” range of marks.

This has been inspired by Orla Stevens, drawing outside as research, and links to my The Moment project. I’ve put together a little pack of A6 index cards with pre-painted base, and a range of mark-making tools. Recent weather has delayed exploration of nearby river shore and mangroves. Instead we have:

  • pen and ink studies from travel photos. The photo doesn’t do justice to the amazing shot-silk sheen of the ink.
  • Posca pen and I think it may have been charcoal pencil, exploring the heaved paving and opportunistic weeds in cracks in our back yard.
  • A close view of a hardy succulent.

It was more the mindset than direct observation that led to a couple of new stencils and some gelli printing.

Finally another Lisbeth Degn exercise, working in series with limited colours.

These use watercolour paper cut to A6, and the unfamiliar (to me) texture was a challenge.

Following Lisbeth the work was done in distinct phases – all the grey, then all the white (gesso), then the black. It promoted the “right, what can I do with this that’s different?” mindset.

My new stencil designs are in there, but the tissue collage doesn’t disappear as much as I’d like. The rough texture of the card, so uneven adhesion, is part of it. Also the fairly flat colour background.

A very messy one used both neocolor I and neocolor II crayons. Worked over with gloss medium this gave some hazy areas of color that I could scratch into, while still having some line work.

There’s lots here that doesn’t work – good learning. Plus quite a bit which I find interesting and would like to try again – the refinement part of the process.

I find this path exciting. Intriguing. Something I want to keep working on – and what more can one ask?

Finally, a quick list of recent reading:

  • George Saunders A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
    (includes short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol)
  • Anne Carson The Beauty of the Husband: a fictional essay in 29 tangos
  • Roland Barthes The Preparation of the Novel
  • Marcel Proust Swann’s Way
  • Shankari Chandran Chai time at Cinnamon Gardens
  • Kate Briggs The Long Form
  • Plus various stories and essays for my Creative Research Group with Ruth Hadlow

The desire to work intuitively, with a different kind of knowledge, was a major driver in my current investigations into mixed media. My analytical and language skills disappeared in times of stress, and I needed to find other pathways in my brain. It feels so good to be able to read again. It feels good to have both. In my quiet, introverted, curious, peculiar, unique way I think I can be enough. I can aim to be to become defiantly and joyfully my self.

Restrained chaos?

This is the latest experiment, and the closest I’ve got so far.

Although I couldn’t see that straight away. I saw fragments, jumble. I’d set constraints –

  • black, white, greys
  • collage only
  • multiple layers – opaque paper and tissue
  • 100% my marks – gelli prints using my own cut stencils; writing (text and asemic); general mark making experiments…

Each element has history and individual context for me. While working my focus moved in and out, trying to identify areas that needed attention and to make fast, local decisions, trying not to be too precious. Stopping was more a matter of ebbing energy and focus than any conclusion.

That was yesterday. This morning, discussing it with my husband over coffee, my focus shifted to the whole. I see elements of promise, evidence of experiential learning (or possibly developing intuition).

Previous experiments in the month were less successful – although all suggested more questions, more ideas to try.

There were also more focused exercises – materials and compositions.

Influences included:

Overall an enjoyable and encouraging month.

Something different???

What can I write about this month? The overview is … pretty much the same as previous months. Still trying to be the me-est I can be in my creative life. Still aiming to weave together thinking, reading, making, living… Still trying to be free, curious, intuitive, experimental in my approach.

“Intuitive” has a touch of chicken-or-egg. According to Merriam-Webster “intuitive tends to apply more to knowledge absorbed through experience, even when not immediately recognized as such”. If I don’t have the experience how can I apply it? Let go, trust the process, keep going. And keep focus on the detail, the nuance, the slight, shimmering, fragmentary change.

Above, collage including base text (the kakimori conical nib), gelli prints (image transfer; onto sticky label paper; a stencil based on twill weave…), book-binding remnants, some silk organza.

Detail of another collage, this time with hand-dyed cotton gauze. Very keen to bring in my textile past.

More pen work, using a variety of inks including the beautiful Pilot iroshizuku. Trying to learn to give space.

Ink-dyed paper, with shibori influence.

Exploring iroshizuku colour combinations – methodically and more freely.

Appreciating details – the transparency of the inks on cheap tissue when collaged.

Improvising a stamp pad of thin craft felt, iroshizuku, and stamps of polystyrene, hair ties and game counters.

The above is, in it’s way, a response to the Ogilby map in my last post – a map of sorts of a winter afternoon’s walk in the neighbourhood.

Trying to find form in a wash of ink, using posca acrylic paint pens.

Back to the methodical, combining iroshizuku inks, posca pens, alcohol ink markers… (mark making technique from Kory’s Art Cafe)

More iroshizuku inks. Black and gold marks via paint dripped on gelli plate. (I’m 99% sure this is based on a video by Robyn McClendon using Liquitex soft body paint). Thanks to fellow Process Art student Traci for her Jackson Pollock reference (also https://fibresofbeing.wordpress.com/2013/12/26/ua1-wap3-p2-ex-annotate-an-abstract-work-blue-poles/).

There’s more than I expected when I started writing this (I’ve weeded out some particularly dismal samples). Some elements of promise. Definitely experience gained. I just need to keep the focus here, on what I’m doing now, not on what I hope for on the path ahead.

Lines from reading

Between December 1978 and February 1980 Roland Barthes presented a course, a series of lectures – collected together as The Preparation of the Novel. He had felt a jolt in middle life, sought change, had the desire to write, to discover a new writing practice, a long form, the novel. He set out not to write a novel, but to explore what that creative process, what that new form, could be.

Last year I read Kate Briggs’s book of essays This Little Art, in which she explores the practice of literary translation. Brigg’s starting point is her own experience translation Barthes’s lecture notes. So now I am reading her translation – and next in line is her novel The Long Form, presumably her own experiment with the process (although it will take me some time to get to that).

Above is a spread in my sketchbook, taking phrases and ideas I’ve gleaned from my reading and trying to translate that into a visual form. It uses a Kakimori stainless steel calligraphy nib. A beautiful and wondrous thing. I love the expressive qualities of that line.

There’s a chain in this note-taking. Barthes’s notes are fragmented, staccato, suggestive or indicative rather than flowing. He addresses the nature of notes in an early lecture, including:

“Notatio instantly appears as the problematic intersection between a river of language, of uninterrupted language – life, both a continuous, ongoing, sequenced text and a layered text, a histology of cut-up texts, a palimpsest – and a sacred gesture: to mark life (to isolate: sacrifice, scapegoat, etc).”

Reading, I make my own notes – sometimes quotes, just as often my responses or questions or with luck those little sparks of what perhaps I can do with this. I don’t want to write long form, I don’t have the background to understand much of what Barthes is saying. I want to learn, to think, to extend, to take it back into my own interests: the theme of multiplying meaning {translation | paratext | marginalia | the poetic}; and my modes of making. I snatch at words and phrases. Unfolding; odyssey; apogee; palimpsest; tenuity; “the aeration it grants the space of discourse”; “condensation that’s anti-totalizing” (very excited by this, given my past professional life of categories and statistics, stripping difference into a mush of generalities); vibration; shimmering; nuance; “emergence of the absolutely immediate”…

My own notes are handwritten and later transcribed into a private blog. Relevant entries have now been collated and printed in sections, with plenty of white space for my future working and marginalia.

The sections are pamphlet stitched into an accordion book – a form that will keep extending, unfolding, as I continue reading.

Naturally the cover has elements of palimpsest, of layering linked to my multiple meaning symbology; of barely decipherable text (also naturally, using my beautiful new conical nib).

In the early lectures that I’m reading Barthes was looking for an alternative to the flow of memory in novels – Proust being his major exemplar. Instead he examines the haiku – Present, intense individuation, nuance… I am trying to remain Present, to take this journey step by step, to respond. Yesterday, unfolding and odyssey led me to this, a framed map from my mum (Ogilby, originally published in the 1600s):

Surely this can take me somewhere…

Multiplying in squares

Multiplying Meaning
Translation | Paratext | Marginalia | The Poetic

Last month I showed some stencils and other work aiming to combine ‘intuitive’ and ‘research’ in project-adjacent making. Since then I’ve been trying to respond to some specific reading – The Many Voices of Lydia Davis: Translation, Rewriting, Intertextuality by Jonathan Evans. This book touched on all the stakes in my terrain, and really broke it wide open. Boundaries made porous, texts that defy holistic reading, translation driving narrative, the arc of narration discarded for a poetic pattern of association, meaning always contingent… I’ve tried to respond in writing, perhaps a dialogue with the authors – both Evans and Davis – but summary, review, personal response all collapsed.

I turned to a making approach, building on the earlier experiments, plus:

  • working in a grid. There are lots of people on YouTube using this format, including Kellee Wynne, Jackie Schomburg, Mary Ellis. A good way to experiment, sample, explore and learn, plus the obvious link of multiple variations.
  • Layering, covering and revealing, the indirect.
  • Collage with elements of text.

First a simple test of format and a colour combination. The squares are about 5cm across.

I enjoyed the opportunity to try lots of different things. It is freeing, avoids investing too much in any single square. 5 cm felt very small and fiddly, and I disliked my messiness in the space around (now toned down a bit with white paint).

The next attempt moved to 8.5 cm squares, so only room for 4 on the page. Taking ideas from the Process Art taught by Jackie Schomburg, I prepared with an Intention:

  • Reviewed notes from Jonathan Evans reading before starting
  • Used Silhouette Cameo to cut out letters in black card for collage. Based on “Resonance”, a key term from my reading.
  • Gathered a selection of gelli prints made using “multiplying meaning” stencils.
  • Burgundy + teal (no higher meaning than something I wanted to try)

When actually making I focused on what was in front of me, trying to remain intuitive and responsive.

Then the Witness:

I get to a certain stage, then have no idea what to do next. Burgundy – wasn’t. Will need to explore paint mixing. Got dark & mid values but got stuck for light – although did try a little metallic pen, wondering if that could be part of my “light”. Tried to get a range of size, type of mark. Got messy around the edges.

I like that I cut up designs – the black letters, the gelli-prints. Not accepting defaults, but still for me personal and project links.

Have I multiplied meaning? Feel now I’m trying to engage with a language I don’t know. The first week of the first year of French in high school.

Leave for a couple of days & reassess. When I step back from “what can I do?” my eye stops fighting and it looks better.

Later I felt I hadn’t been brave enough, hadn’t pushed, hadn’t worked through enough layering, the push and pull of cover and reveal.
But … these grids are not a thing in themselves. They are part of a process – and my standard process involves a lot of sampling. Trying things out, experimenting, partial attempts with no intention of a Work. When weaving I ended up with a lot of scarves – extended samples. With polymer clay, earrings. Functional I suppose, but more valuable as reference material, sparking more ideas.

At this early stage of learning I want to keep the incomplete layers visible, as reminders, inputs, raw material for later more complex attempts.

Stop being in such a hurry.

Enjoy the process.

And actually, reflecting now, this approach was very successful as an intuitive element in my research project.