Tendency of Thought (18"x18", encaustic, cheesecloth) A number of months ago I looked at a call that I wanted to apply to and saw that it specified “Only 2D” submissions. Now given that I have focused on 3D work over the last year or so, I thought this was a nice little challenge. Challenges are a good thing. They encourage us to experiment and they test our willingness to step out of our comfort zone. Sometimes these challenges emerge as mere questions; how can I hang this sculpture on the wall, how can I use this material differently, how can I convey this idea? A good number of these deliberations remain ‘on the back burner’, so to speak, waiting for that spark of inspiration. Sometimes that spark happens right away. I see something new that hints at an answer, or look at the problem in a whole new way. Sometimes it’s just that infamous 'happy accident'.
With this submission challenge, I knew that I wanted to incorporate both encaustic and cheesecloth, the two mediums I use in all of my 3D work, now the question was how.
In my last blog post I talked about the little encaustic and cheesecloth cubes that made up my piece Moving Day. Well, one day while I was making some of these little boxes, I decided to remove some of the sections of the painted cloth cube forms in an attempt to alter their shapes. While I worked, I absentmindedly placed the resulting small rectangular pieces onto a small board.
As the number of these small rectangular shapes increased, the beginnings of an image appeared- a decidedly accidental image! I loved the feeling of flow that came from the formal repetition and the resulting sense of rhythm in the pattern and texture. This needed further examination and so I set my cubes aside and began to paint large sections of cheesecloth and proceeded to cut them into MANY small rectangular shapes. Once again, as with my Tesserae Series, I found myself reformulating the harmonious whole into smaller elements, giving it new order. In my Tesserae series, I make encaustic tiles by creating many similar multi-layered encaustic paintings, systematically strip the painting from its wooden substrate into narrow ribbons and cut these ribbons into tiles which make up the final painting.
Tesserae VIII (18"x18", encaustic tiles)
Tesserae X detail (18"x18", encaustic tiles)Does this mean that I have the secret desire to redesign my universe.....to make, out of fragments, symbols of incompleteness, something that is complete and whole!?!
Tendency of Thought detail (18"x18", encaustic, cheesecloth)Tendency of Thought, seen at the top of this post, is the result of this ‘happy accident”. It has been included in Hot Wax in the City at Morpho Gallery in Chicago and in Evans Encaustic online show Patterning in Painting. http://evansencaustic.blogspot.com It will be included in the Chicago Artists Month exhibit The Buzz this October in Gallery 303 at the Zhou B Art Center in Chicago.
interesting that you make a whole out of fragments--an additive approach. You start from fragments....I tend to come at it from the opposite direction: break up a whole into fragments to make into a new, different whole... I seek fragmentation, disruption, discontinuities for they more accurately reflect what life feels like.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you like the square or cube and its stability and groundedness and add fragmented surface embellishment to its planes. I find your vessel (as in the Mulvane show) more interesting cuz the plane is not just fragments applied to a surface (more a 2D approach), but fragmentation produced by the now-you-see-it-now yo-don't weaving of bands so is inherent in the structure.
I'm drawn to the triangle in my 2D work. I love the triangle with its spikey angularity, but that's another story. In the end, I think we both reach the same end (not a goal, necessarily...it just works out that way)....a balanced whole... a resolution of countervailing forces: an intuited sense of equilibruim of order/chaos that we express visually. Hope this makes sense.
Martha, thank you for your thoughtful comments. They do make sense and ring true. I love your take on the fragmentation inherent in my weaving technique. Interesting that we approach 'fragmentation" differently. Maybe you live in a calmer, gentler world than I do and so embrace the disruption that life is. Living in the center of a large city, I suspect I seek harmony from all the discontinuities around me!?! I find as time goes on, I approach and interpret the world differently in my life and in my art.
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