This word has been my mantra the last several weeks. I’ve written a couple posts here about my frustration with a new line of brooches. I’ve done many experiments and had many failures. In fact a whole table full. I’m not exagerrating by much. I must have had 50 pieces of assorted parts- wire, fabric, polymer clay, beads, just laying there for the last month. Some friends said I should drop it and just move on. For some reason I just couldn’t do that.
A few days ago I looked at the table and said to myself, that I would sit there, assembling assorted brooches until all the parts were used up and the table was cleared. I took the pressure off by saying (and believing) that they did not have to be good- in fact would not be good- and my only goal was to clear the table via assembling parts together.
The upshot was, that not only was it enjoyable, but I actually got a few new brooches that have possibilities! And they have an air of unpredictability about them that I like. The brooches are still not quite at the level I am envisioning but DEFINITELY further along on theire journey.
No pics yet- I promise next week- but here’s a pic of my creativity angel- a sculpture from Italy.
I had another interesting and very productive get-together with my art friends Janet and Emily. We looked at and critiqued my “crude” piece and my “couple steps up from crude” piece (that I showed you a couple posts ago.)
We all agreed that the crude piece has a spirit about it and the other piece feels dead. So it was a very interesting conversation about why? and how to translate that spirit into a more refined design. This is all to say that I’m still not quite ready to show my best version yet-hopefully next week!
I am working on my next homework assignment for class- exploring Format (presenting you art in different ways). I’m doing a book about Vessels-exploring scale and environment. it will be a series of small paintings. Here’s one- it’s called Make Room for a Pot.
I’m not quite done or ready to show the final piece in my Task from last week (tho I have been working hard on it!) so thought I would share with you what else I have been doing this week.
I signed up for what I thought was a monoprint class at our local junior college. Turns out the class is mainly about using watercolors and other water media in an experimental way. I am one of only two non-painters in the class and so it was shock to my system when I realized what the class was really going to be about! However I decided because I was so fearful of this class that it is probably the exact thing I need to do. So I am forging ahead.
Our first assignment- to choose a theme for the whole semester - this theme will be the inspiration for all the work we create. Mine is Vessels.
And for the first week we had to create two paintings 11×15″ on watercolor paper tacking the problem of Abstracting a Form. I made three pieces - one exploring Elongation and Exaggeration. Another, Flattening and Patterning and the last one is Fractionalizing. It was a challenge (especially the critique) but very interesting. Here’s Fractionalizing:
(I’ll show the other two at some point- having trouble loading the pics.)
Assignment number 2 is due in two weeks- another crisis looms before me- but a good one I think!
This word has been my mantra the last several weeks. I’ve written a couple posts here about my frustration with a new line of brooches. I’ve done many experiments and had many failures. In fact a whole table full. I’m not exagerrating by much. I must have had 50 pieces of assorted parts- wire, fabric, polymer clay, beads, just laying there for the last month. Some friends said I should drop it and just move on. For some reason I just couldn’t do that.
