Coming to an End

Published December 12, 2012 Art Ideas 3 Comments

A quick note: the domain name for Ragged Cloth Cafe is up for renewal. I have been maintaining the name for some years but am now ready to let it lapse. If anyone is interested in taking it over, please let me know soon.

You can send me a note via “comments” or in a personal email. For the last batch of posts, Olga has done a heroic job of trying to keep the ideas and images flowing, but even she finally dropped back. However, the site will be here for a bit longer, and if anyone, including (or perhaps especially Olga), would be interested in maintaining it, I think there are ways to transfer the name. Just let me know, and I’ll figure out the details.

And just for the record — the Ragged Cloth Cafe has some of the most fascinating materials on textile art I’ve found on the web. It would be great if it could continue and regain its momentum.

Thanks to everyone who participated over the years.

June

Questions, questions (by Olga Norris)

Published July 21, 2011 Art criticism , Art Technique , artist development , quilt art , textile art , Women in art 13 Comments

In her juror’s statement in the Quilt National 2011 catalogue Eleanor McCain, started with the question ‘What about these works of art demands that they be formed from cloth and thread?  Is there a message and meaning that can only be revealed through this medium?  What in the quilt form is important to the art?  As a fiber art professor once asked, “If it’s not about the fiber, why work in that medium?” 

 I was struck with these questions which set me thinking.  I can only talk about my own work, which was successful in being selected for this exhibition.  I have not seen the discussion which June spoke of in her comments in the previous post, so forgive me if I am duplicating.  (I have had irritating experiences with Yahoo which are too tedious to go into here.)  The thoughts I have originate with my own work(s), but I hope that those thoughts will elicit responses from others. 

Ponder

What about my piece demands that it be formed from cloth and thread?  Well, certainly not the subject, whatever people interpret it to be, because subjects can be explored and manifest in all sorts of media.  It is essentially how the artist wishes to express themselves that dictates what medium, and what techniques within the medium are chosen.  I suppose the question that I should perhaps ask myself each time I make a piece of work in quilt form is ‘Is this the most appropriate medium to choose?’  I do know that although those are the means I mostly use to express myself at present, some ideas and designs ‘do not work’ for me in cloth and stitch, and demand a different treatment.  This is a kind of discrimination on my part, but I must admit that I do not rigorously investigate how far my works demand to be formed from cloth and thread.

 This ties closely with the next question: Is there a message and meaning that can only be revealed through this medium?  Again, the answer is probably no in the case of my piece.  Choosing a medium has more to do with the language, the voice in which I ‘speak’ rather than to do with the message or the meaning.  Of course the medium can colour the delivery of any message, just as it does the interpretation – but is it so important that the message should only be revealed in this medium?  Are there any – or many – messages which can only be revealed in this medium? What in the quilt form is important to the art?  At last a question I can answer without frustration.  As Eleanor McCain said: ‘The quilt is laden, even burdened, with symbolism.’.  It is that symbolism and the symbolic values of cloth and stitch generally which contribute to the way the message is both presented and interpreted.  Indeed this is part of what makes quilt-making a slow art: not only is it obvious that the making takes time, but also the full interpretation should take time.  In this way, being judged for exhibition becomes even more of a lottery if initial impact is not part of the message. 

One of the qualities of the art quilt is that it is derived from an everyday practical object to which one does not regularly pay much attention.  But in that familiarity as part of the background, at a receptive moment it can catch the viewer’s casual glance to reveal more, drawing the eye to consider and perhaps understand more.  Of course enigmatic work in any medium can do that.  And choosing to make work in quilt form is a double-edged sword in that by that very use of everyday materials which hang as they are the work can be dismissed as somehow inferior, easily made, domestic in a pejorative way compared with neat framed wall art which is believed to take skill, and uses special materials which are only to be found in artists’ studios.

I therefore think that it is so much more difficult to make good art using a medium which is so easily overlooked or dismissed.  But the question of good art was not raised. 

The professor’s quoted statement of ‘If it’s not about the fiber, why work in that medium?’ I find it useful to keep asking myself questions such as whether I am a fibre artist.  I could be described as a digital printmaker who uses cloth and stitch.  And sometimes I develop images/designs which are not always suitable for use with cloth and/or stitch.   

Part of my use of medium, I must frankly admit is practical.  I develop designs digitally, which means that it’s clean.  I can pick up and put down my physical work almost anywhere without having to clean up or manage materials in the way that a painter or ceramicist must.  I can stitch while spending every afternoon with my aged mother with whom I do not get on and have nothing to say – but she approves of the activity which thus keeps me sane. I love the feel of cloth, and appreciate the meditative qualities derived from repetitive stitching.

But it is not just that.  I’m interested in comfort and discomfort in human relationships, and for that reason domestic techniques and materials are an appropriate language for me to use at present.

 What I am much more interested in really is Is it good art?  And in a way the only person who can answer that is me.  Hey ho.

Connecting thread (by Olga Norris)

Published July 16, 2011 Art criticism , Art Ideas , art intepretation , Artist , textile art , Women in art 10 Comments

Crafts magazine, May/June 2010

The work of artist Maurizio Anzeri came to my attention in this magazine last year, with an article written by Jessica Hemmings.  And recently I found that an exhibition of his work is on at Baltic, Gateshead.   I am intrigued by uses of stitch, especially when not on cloth, because I wonder what it is that drew the artist to the needle and thread rather than to the pencil, pen, etc.

There is of course the added dimension of both the thread and its effect – in this case the latter being the holes caused by the needle.  So is this use of needle and thread rather than pen and line adding the active dimension of piercing and pulling.  Piercings on anonymous faces from the past, and is it a drawing out of their individuality in its unknown chaotic form, pulled out to form the imposed order of the stitched pattern?

Brigitte Family Album

And do they remind you as they do me of those so fashionable pictures made with nails and string on a dark background – when was that? 

To me these works by Anzeri are the dark side of stitching, somehow destructive of human sentiment because they take time, delicacy, precision, to overlay, to obliterate   Taking the tradition of pattern stitching, historically used to denote cultural difference, originally used in a positive way: treasured reminders of meaningful family moments, added to the similarly important marker of the photographic portrait – from years before the constant instant snapping of today – these spirographic doodlings may be attractive in an abstracted way, but I find them fundamentally cruel in outlook.

But we humans are a cruel species, and just as there is excessive sentimentality about photographs, so at the other end there is this twisting of view of what they might mean.   The artist Julie Cockburn also distorts found photographs, as well as sometimes embroidering on them.

Little one (left) Daydreamer

Mary (left) Warrior

 Is this kind of work yet another way in which an artist can say what others are feeling?  That far from venerating our ancestors and their aspirations for us, their progeny, we want to impose our own patterns on them retrospectively?  Is this form of art chosen because abstraction is not direct or personal enough?  The abstract can be taken in whatever way the observer wishes, such as in the work of  Alison Schwarz.

Untitled

This does not even have a title to point the viewer.  But the altered photographs link directly with every viewer in a very personal way. 

I managed to find a middle ground, using photograph and thread – although with nails this time, not specifically stitch – a use of collage/assemblage by Dayna Thacker.  Do we find this more attractive/acceptable?  And if we do, is it because we prefer to sugar our pills?

Birth of a Prophet

I think that use of traditional materials, domestic skills, and use of previously highly regarded cultural markers can be incredibly powerful semiotic tools in expressing ourselves today.

A publication and a publisher hit the dust (by Olga Norris)

Published June 21, 2011 Art criticism , Art Ideas , artist development , contemporary art , textile art 14 Comments

From the age of four I wanted to be an artist.  Later I grew to appreciate writing in its various forms, and was lucky enough to have a fulfillingly creative career in publishing.  When the career became distinctly less creative I turned my attention more fully onto becoming more involved with personal expression.  This was aided and perhaps even specifically directed by an inspirational magazine I found while living in the USA in the very early 80s: Fiberarts.  

I did not turn to textiles immediately.  Such is the power of the accepted view of what being an artist is that I worked first in acrylics on paper.  But I subscribed to Fiberarts, just as I had subscribed to Crafts magazine for years previously.  It was a combination of my previous experience with textiles as a child, the constant inspiration and broadening of my thinking by reading Fiberarts, and the encounter with a fascinating exhibition entitled Art of the Stitch by the UK Embroiderers’ Guild which finally tipped me over.

 I found a voice of my own at the turn of the century, but the desire for incoming inspiration and information about the work of others, their expressions and their intentions has not diminished.  I am sad that Fiberarts is now no more.  I must admit that I have been expecting it ever since it was bought by a company which seemed primarily interested in enormous circulation; but I take no pleasure in being proved right.  I am only glad that the Internet is there to supply serendipitous delights – but what is missing there is critical nourishment.

 I had hoped some years ago that Telos books would grow into a list spanning from introductions to the artists in various countries using textile as their medium, through monographs on particular artists, to academic texts.  The visuals were stunning.  The design seductive, but the text was sadly lacking, and increasingly more so as the price increased.  Even a book addict hooked on art textiles stopped buying some years ago now.  So now Telos is also no more.

 Does this mean that there is no market for thoughtful, thought-provoking critical analysis within and about art which uses textile forms and techniques?  Have those of us who want to exchange thoughts more about intention than technique been swamped by the seemingly ever increasing thirst for the latter?  Is it out there and I’ve just missed it somehow?

Louise Bourgeois’ fabric drawings (by Olga Norris)

Published October 20, 2010 Art Ideas , Art Technique , Artist , artist development , textile art , Women in art 5 Comments

I have recently acquired a splendid large book: the catalogue of an exhibition of Louise Bourgeois fabric works.  I have written about this in my blog, but one aspect of the work interested me in particular – Bourgeois’ fabric drawings.

The images above are from a selection on the Hauser + Wirth site where the exhibition is on currently.  Another drawing can be seen here.  I am also intrigued by her collections of fabric drawings which she has made into books.  Here  and here give an idea of what their pages look like.

I find all of these pieces engaging and attractive on first view, and then despite their apparent simplicity – maybe because of their deceptive simplicity, I am intrigued to gaze on them longer.    I think that it’s a question of the compositions, the balance and choice of colours, the intensity of them which detain me.  And I certainly admire the quality of the craftsmanship.  That is not to say that I am in awe of Bourgeois’ craftsmanship, her wielding of a needle.  It is her idea that the craftsmanship is an important element which intrigues me.

Here is an artist drawing attention to craftmanship.  Of course  fibre craft is vital to the concept of so much of Bourgeois’ work in whatever medium given her tapestry mending origins.  But it struck me that Bourgeois validates so many of us who have the urge to express ourselves artistically, and who choose fibre craft as our medium.

As we see here in the fabric drawings, the effect can be powerful, arresting; work that is paired away and direct.  I find the oeuvre of Louise Bourgeois such a vital encouragement and endorsement of what I am trying to do, and these fabric drawings in particular reassure me that I should continue to try to simplify, to distil.

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

Published August 26, 2010 Art Ideas , artist development 8 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!

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