Art & design, musing no. 1

 

I've been thinking a lot about my efforts to balance emerging art/collage interests with my long-established design practice. There have been times when I felt I could walk away from design and focus completely on collage. Then I have moments, like today, when I'm mulling over how to visually re-position a business and can't imagine not having that interaction and challenge in my life. 

I'll always think like a designer. It informs everything I do. It certainly contributes significantly to who I am as an artist. 

Balance could be wildly over-rated. Heading full-tilt in the direction of what I'm most interested in at the moment may be the best approach. One creative endeavor feeds the other. At this time of hybridization and collaboration, perhaps a renaissance approach suits me best. 

And then there's the overlap. Many of my design clients also collect my artwork, while many of my artist friends ask for design advice. My card says artist/designer. Maybe it should say artist+designer... It's all connected. 

(Photo is a pattern of light through moving tree branches, cast across a wall, just another random but visually intriguing moment in my day!)

Bursting out

Tumultuous waves of paper... I've been intrigued this winter with the walls of tissue-texture that form the background for the window displays at the Anthropologie store and finally got around to snapping a few photos. They may be snowflake references, or blossoms. Whatever, they are beautiful forms and make a surprisingly elegant and tactile background. On close inspection, the components remind me of the bright tissue paper flowers we made as kids, although the range of neutrals to white colors used and the sophistication of the cut designs is very different. Just gorgeous.

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." — Anais Nin

Circles: "simultaneously stable and unstable"

 Question from Gina on my facebook fan page about the collage, "Timeline:" I see lots of images of wheels, tire tracks, circular motion, etc. Do these have particular meaning?"A: "Mostly I see them as references to the cyclical aspect of time, although now that you mention it, perhaps there was some "spinning of wheels" during that period of my life! The collage elements are open to your interpretation... that's part of what makes this so much fun."And just now, I see this great article by Natalie Angier on The Circular Nature of the Universe in the New York Times... worth reading. About the painter Vasily Kandinsky: "The circle, he wrote, is “the most modest form, but asserts itself unconditionally.” It is “simultaneously stable and unstable,” “loud and soft,” “a single tension that carries countless tensions within it.” Lovely ideas — circles and curves are recurring elements in so much of my work.The collage above, "Secondary," is a 4 x 4" study, one of 13 that was submitted to the International Collage Exchange in 2005.(P.S. If you are not already a fan of my art work on facebook, I'd be honored to have you as one!)

Background patterns

I love patterns of all kinds and often use them as elements in my collages. Here is a photo of the newspaper tax lien listings that make up the background of "Juggling." The tabular format of the type creates a random pattern and every other line has a shaded stripe. The type is about 4 point so you can only read it if you are really close, just names and numbers. The inside of safety envelopes (usually from bills)— along with bits of time cards, to-do lists, and order forms— have also made their way into my work from time to time. I'm always on the lookout for new elements to stash in the studio for use "someday." This explains the chaotic but bountiful state of my studio!