Inspiration, Influence, and Instruction (ramblings by Olga Norris)

Published August 26, 2010 Art Ideas , artist development 5 Comments

Voila

Recently I have been mulling over thoughts about these tricky three Is.  At first Instruction seems easy enough to separate away from the other two.  But I don’t think that it’s domain consists only of workshops, lectures, and how-to books.  We learn so much by perception, by example, and yes, by influence.  We even receive instruction by pursuing inspiration.

 So, a tangled ball of threads.  It is not always worth spending time separating out individual threads from such balls; but the activity sometimes forms an appropriate distraction while the back burner is sorting out more serious stuff.  And in any case I thought it was long past time that I contributed something to the Cafe.

 Which of these three Is comes first?  I vividly remember travelling home from town on a coach, wetting my finger to fill in the magic drawing book: the colours were embedded in the paper and released when wet.  I also remember my great uncle taking me to see mosaics being restored.  And the moment of decision when my portrait was painted at the age of four: ‘I want to be an artist’.  So much is coming at us, and we are grasping so many different elements and aspects of life in those earliest years that I cannot separate influence, instruction, inspiration.  I can just be happy that I received all three.

 After my career in publishing was over I drifted towards work with fibre and design because these were areas in which I had some little hobby experience and some adjacent practice respectively.  I plunged way out of my depth by deciding to enter the world of knitwear design.  Not enough instruction there – but on the other hand it was a fun learning curve which I would never have enjoyed had the instruction come first.  But it was lucky that disaster was not financial, because such ventures can be costly mistakes.

 Inspiration in the form of an exhibition of international contemporary embroidery drew me to a more focused instruction at workshops in the UK Embroiderers’ Guild.  There I learned so many specific skills, but also learned new viewpoints.  The question then arises – ‘how do I want to use these skills?’  So many of the brilliant teachers were artists whose work I would never want to copy, because what they made did not express who I am.

 Was it the inspiration or the influence of the coincidence that I took up the Embroiderers’ Guild workshops in the year celebrating the anniversary of India’s independence?  I went to a fascinating lecture given by Anne Morrell on Kantha quilts, followed by a workshop on quilting with silk where I tried out the Kantha running stitch on my samples.  Bingo!

 Background instruction in looking at and learning about art came not only from my seeking out as much input as I could, but specifically at university where I took classes in Aesthetics as part of my degree, and a year’s course in History of Art influenced not only by my pre-existing leanings but particularly because the principal lecturer was David Talbot Rice, an expert in Byzantine art (which I had been surrounded by in my childhood in Thessaloniki, Greece).  While at university I was also filled with inspiration by the gallery owner and artist Richard Demarco who was extremely generous with his time and his experience.  All this instruction on how to look was influencing me in seeking out inspiration.

 When I first thought about making serious art I found it extremely difficult to extract my thinking from the influence of my previous expertise in commissioning illustrative art.  Both ideas and how to illustrate them were filtered through my publishing experience.  It has taken me a long time and much re-adjustment of thinking to let my mind flow into my own expressions.  It can still be an insidious influence to encounter wondrous art in a style to which the immediate reaction is ‘I should make work like that!’  It can take so long to get past such a self-destructive approach, and I still find from time to time doubts creep in about what I’m doing and how I am doing it.

 It is essential always to want to improve, and to welcome instruction, influence, and certainly inspiration – but all as nourishment to becoming better at what we do.  Because in the end the real question is not which is which, but what are we doing with it all?

Time (by Olga Norris)

Published May 22, 2010 Art Ideas , art intepretation , artist development , gaze , quilt art , textile art 9 Comments

Specifically, time in the visual arts.  At a concert, watching a film or other performance, or reading a book, I enjoy the unfolding, the development, the altering of perspective and increase in understanding – all of which continue beyond the end in a work of worth.  What about art on the wall?  Paintings can be big enough to encompass the whole wall, and can take time to complete the looking, but generally the fixed image has to contain something else to hold and impart time. 

 While at a jazz concert listening to a piece with a distinct journey, holding back and revealing, teasing and revealing, I thought how difficult it is for a maker of fixed images to convey such a journey to the observer.  I started thinking about it seriously after that, and managed to answer a question which I’d casually asked myself many years ago. 

 

 Why is it when visiting a new place, particularly a foreign place, that so many of us are drawn to decay?  It is not just the old ways of building that attract us, because reconstructions are not seen to be quite as alluring as decay.  What is it about the poor parts of a city that make them so much more attractive than the prosperous well-tended parts?  What makes them so artistically inspiring? 

 Is it time?  The passage of time is writ clearly upon the face of the building in its decay.  Do we need to see the marks of time to feel a kind of comfort?  Which thought brought me to looking at the marks made by thread on cloth.  In a very direct way this can be seen in the work of Matthew Harris, and anyone who is inspired by the urban archaeology of peeling posters. 

stitched textile by Matthew Harris

 

 The question of time also brought me to thinking about ‘the frozen moment’: the photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson being the ultimate example of this for me.  One of his genius abilities in my mind is that although he always seems to be there to capture the astonishing instant, he also does not detract  from or paralyse the action.  In that still we are given a glimpse into a continuum. 

 I realise that this is what I want from fixed images: that they should engage with both the concept of time and with my time.  I take as the ultimate example the magical image of Yves Klein’s Leap into the Void.  Having grasped the attention it immediately provokes the imagination to supply the continuum, it questions, it arouses curiosity, and is timeless.  I love it, and find that it leaps often from the void –or out of the blue – into my mind in conjunction with many different topics. 

 In my own work I suppose I try to capture an ambiguity or enigma which can change with viewings over time.  Although my own emotions are encompassed, I hope that they have been distilled and abstracted (aha! – see my last post here) enough to be more universal.  I aspire to the foothills of Edward Hopper in providing a work which is not-quite-completely-knowable, but which attracts and satisfies timeless curiosity.  It will take me some time to get there, but I hope to continue having fun on the way!

Why figurative? (by Olga Norris)

Published May 1, 2010 Art Ideas , artist development 6 Comments

Victor Pasmore Spiral Development: The Snowstorm (1950-51), Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London

 I am constantly being tugged by abstracts which I find inspirational, and which keep asking me why not make abstract work?  Why always figurative?

I admire so much in the Japanese textile canon, so many pieces of which I have been lucky enough to see in one of Linda Millar’s curated exhibitions such as the current Cultex show.   I look at works by artists such as Carol Farrow,  Jan Garside, Jean Lyons Butler,  and so many others in textiles, painting, sculpture, etc., and even ask myself whether I should be trying to work to an abstract imperative.  I have even felt that perhaps being a creator of abstract work marks one out as being more intellectually ‘valid’ as a contemporary artist.

Such are the self-doubting thoughts which flit about from time to time in my brain.  Now, after ten years of developing my textile work, I don’t beat myself up for not trying to think in abstracts.  However, I do still enjoy reading articles such as that of painter and art writer Julian Bell in the Guardian newspaper this morning.

My own answer to why figurative is that that’s how I express myself.  It might change in the future, but that would have to come about naturally, as part of my expressive need.  As I have found over these ten years, every time I try to contrive a result it ends up a mess.  That’s not to say that I simply emote.  I try to be rigorous and critical with what I do produce; but just as I accept that I’m working in textiles rather than stone, paint, or clay, I’m also dealing with the figure rather than being abstract.  Perhaps one day I shall find that I can move between the two, like Carole Waller. 

 

Meantime, I do rather enjoy relaxing with my figures and no longer beating myself up for perhaps not being ‘cutting edge’ enough!

I’d be interested to read whether anyone else had/has similar questions about their work.

Fit for purpose (by Olga Norris)

Published March 18, 2010 Art Ideas , Art criticism , art intepretation , artist development 5 Comments

I recently visited an exhibition of the work of art editor and graphic designer David Hillman.  He is a man whose work I have long admired – and indeed did not know that he was the one behind all the different manifestations.  From the days of the iconic Nova magazine, the glory days of the Sunday Times newspaper, the surreal Benson and Hedges cigarette advertisements, all the designs for Pentagram , … these are images which brought feelings of wonder, excitement, a need to see and know more.  This was the kind of design that I dreamed of aspiring to in my publishing work.

In each case the image was more than the sum of its parts, and was definitively fit for purpose: it drew the appropriate attention to the product, not to the designer of the image – except from fellow professionals.  Good product design similarly excites me, as does brilliant architectural design.  In each case the end result should be at the very least fit for purpose, and also hold some individual integrity beyond the sum of its parts.

 Design is done to a brief which provides boundaries and requirements, as well as the discipline of a necessary respect for the materials and techniques involved.  I have always believed that the more one knows, but the less one indulges oneself the better prepared becomes the vital tool of the brain’s back burner.

 Although art and design are different disciplines, they should overlap, just as they should both overlap with craft.  The more frequently exercised debate is the one between craft and art; but the one not often enough heard is that between design and art, most especially the question of fitness for purpose.

Of course this fitness for purpose in art this is not so clearly defined as in product design, architecture, even graphic design and craft.  And it goes without saying that I am not in the least talking about any practical purpose.  The artist themselves and time are the important judges of what that purpose is; but the informed observer – whether a practising artist or not – should keep seeking to make critical judgments of their own – even if those judgments are later refined or even revised in the light of further enlightenment.  And by critical I do not mean only negative judgements or observations.

 I do believe that there should be a fitness for purpose in one’s art, and that this should constantly be under consideration.  This design thinking, once second nature, along with mastery of appropriate craft and its twin, appreciation of materials, facilitates those special tools of the artist – imagination and the back burner – in making good art: something more than the sum of its parts.

TRASH, ART AND CRAFT

Published February 23, 2010 Art Ideas , Art Technique , Art criticism , Artist , Contributors , textile art 5 Comments
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This post was also published at my WordPress blog Webs and Threads. At June Underwood’s invitation I am sharing this interesting work by weaver Aymar Ccopacatty since it coincides with my recent travel and experiences with trash in India. Aymar’s emphasis in weaving is on using trash found in the landscape of Peru.

(For some reason, the wonderful youtube video of Aymar in Peru weaving  isn’t currently being accepted on this blog but can be seen at the Webs And Threads blog and at Aymar’s website listed at the end of the post. I will try to add it again later.)

~Nancy Engstad

From my post on websandthreads.wordpress.com~

One of the things that is ubiquitous in India is the presence of trash. This is something that seems to exist whether in city or countryside and it was quite an overwhelming part of being in this country for the first time. The roadsides are covered in it; adults, children, and animals seem oblivious to the tide of discarded paper and trash of every type that is part of everyday life.

I had an opportunity in Udaipur to chat with an Indian activist, visiting from his home in California. He was a guest at the home of my friends there, sharing with them their great passion for aiding the people of India. In the course of our conversation I did ask finally, about this tremendous problem. His answer made perfect sense. In times past, he explained, trash in India was of the organic kind which in time, would degrade or decay. The trash of the 20th and 21st Centuries has an infinite lifespan and confounds the old traditions of keeping the interiors of homes spotless by sweeping out daily litter from the door.

A street scene in India.

A gypsy camp by the roadside in India at dusk.

So the topic of trash was in my mind when I received an email announcement for an exhibition from an artist I’ve known since his first exhibition at the age of three. Aymar Ccopacatty had just immigrated from Peru with his Peruvian father and American mother when we met. His father Peruko, is also an artist and comes from the ancient Peruvian people, the Aymara.

Now thirty, Aymar Ccopacatty, spends time both in the United States and in Peru where he pursues his weaving and is passionate as well about preserving the ancient Peruvian traditions of weaving.

Recently Aymar sent me an announcement of his exhibition in New York City of the weavings he had created using trash from the landscape of Peru. As in India, the old and the new seem to collide in Peru, without a means of managing the detritus of modern times.  Aymar has addressed the situation in Peru by using trash to spin and weave into art, a powerful statement about his culture and the relationship of his traditions with the West.

Here is a scene sent by Aymar of a lake view in Peru.

Following is a statement from Aymar on what he considers his life’s work, preserving the ancient traditions of weaving as they meet with the changing modern influences in the Peruvian culture.

“I was born in Peru, my Father’s land, of two distinct cultures.We lived there until my second birthday, before returning to my Mother’s land in the U.S. Since then, much of my life’s exploration has been dedicated to fully understanding the dichotomies of these two greatly different cultures as they exist within and outside of myself.

I am a weaver. My work combines modern material with ancient technique. I n myexplorations I have built looms, spun and knitted using trash such as plastic and rubber tires. Much of the trash comes from Lake Titicaca, an ancient and ecologically sensitive environment 12,000 feet above sea level. The language and culture here is Aymara, a millennial language dating back to pre-Inca Wari and Tiwanaku empires. The work is a synthesis of tradition with modernity. I feelthat sometimes tradition must change and build upon its origins in order to achieve continued relevance in modern contexts, while also serving as a vehicle to express the concerns of an isolated and culturally marginalized people on the fringes of Peruvian society.

I learned the techniques of spinning, weaving and knitting within a traditional indigenous Aymara lifestyle. My Grandmother Maria, a master weaver, would spend her days in the fields and nights at home, all the while spinning her drop spindle to a rhythm of lake and sky. At the age of fifteen I began learning from her. Traditionally men wove bolts of cloth on a stiff heddle loom, and the women wove their elaborate and colorful designs on string-heddled tension looms. I saw that as things changed, both men and women might abandon this knowledge completely.

Slowly this abandonment has come to pass. The Awayu is the traditional carrying cloth of Andean women. As the Aymara enter modernity many of these traditional cloths are now being made of synthetic materials on machine looms. This combination of new material and process cuts us off from the past. The traditional Andean weavings are warp-faced and are strung up to the desired final length. If looked at from the side, one sees the shape as an Infinity symbol. They are never cut or sewn. The older weavings are thought to contain a bit of the Elder’s presence and energy, and are therefore sacred. Within the traditional weaving of the Aymara, originating millennia ago, are held elements of color, composition, and structure that form a metaphysical complexity and language of great cultural meaning. This art form is now threatened with extinction.

Peru is a nation built on layers and layers of human habitation and pre-Colombian cultures dating back through time. Now, more than five hundred years after the Spanish conquest, the nation is just beginning to accept its indigenous identity and rich past. As with most indigenous peoples worldwide, life for these peoples in modern Peru hasn’t been equal or fair.

This interplay between ancient and modern society is something very necessary today. Though both societies find each other sharing a shrinking Planet, there is room for all.

Indigenous people combine form and function. Woven and knitted pieces, are simultaneously used to acknowledge and celebrate our ceremonial place in the Universe, while also providing everyday uses such as, clothing, backpacks, lower back support, plates, weaponry, boats and roofs. Spiritual significance is not separated from functional object. This unity of ideas over time have found expression in my people’s weaving tradition.

The Aymara traditionally use the term “Qara” to denote one outside of their culture.This word literally means “Naked” or “wears no identity”. Taken further, it implies that Western clothing originally struck the Aymara as lacking a ”transmission of ideas”.   To us these conceptual signifiers of color and design transmit our ideas as the highest expression of Humankind’s place in the Cosmos. Since the traditional weaving of Peru is and has truly been a vehicle for transmission of ideas I feel that it rises above the merely functional “craft” definition, existing rather as an expressive and communicative art form. Only in broadening and changing the way the West shapes its definitions can we hope to preserve our ancient spiritual and creative heritage to share with future generations.”

Beautiful examples of the transformation of trash from the Peruvian landscape into art by Aymar Ccopacatty.

As an experimental textile artist, Aymar has used interesting methods and materials to weave his pieces. With an emphasis on found materials, you will see that he has recycled both the “fiber” and the loom from found material of the most humble and simple variety.

While “found” objects and material are now often used in the making of art, Aymar’s work invests an intention in his pieces that draws on his heritage and calls upon us to view them in that context.  They are both thoroughly “new” and “old” at the same time.

Aymar Ccopacatty
www.aymart.org

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