Moving a Sculpture, or this weekend reminds me why I make quilts

May 25, 2008

We finally got back up to Omaha to pick up this sculpture purchased at the Bemis Art Auction last fall. It will be a fun Memorial weekend project to move it back home for our new sculpture garden collection.

It’s very heavy and awkward to move — took six guys to drag it to the edge of the loading dock at the Bemis, before it could be lifted with a fork truck. Opps, lost a wheel.

Actually it the end, it worked better to take off all the wheels and load them separately.

Oh well, if the wheels really worked, it would just spin in a circle anyway. The sculpture is very heavy and now the truck and trailer is difficult to drive on the highway. Although it was a beautiful evening in old downtown Omaha last night, today the forecast is for heavy storms, wind and hail. Should be a exciting trip home!

Also stopped yesterday at the 51st Brownsville, NE historic flea market and craft festival. Wait till you see what I got there…

Filed Under other artists, sculpture | 2 Comments

Mosiacs at Dallas International Terminal D

April 25, 2008

Never had much chance in Dallas to look at at art, but a three-hour layover gave me plenty of time to study a big collection of what they tell me is eight million dollars of public art installed at the International Terminal D.

I especially enjoyed a series of mosaics in the floor. These are photos of Jane Helslander’s “Floating in Space: A Waltz.” What is it about mosaics that are so intriquing? Is it the way the tiny fragments fit together to make a bigger image?

Here are some more photos on Flickr.

Filed Under journeys, other artists | 3 Comments

What did I say at the Lux?

April 9, 2008

Can’t remember really. Something about how I used to draw and do digital art, but missed the joy and funkiness of the handcrafted object, and so began to combine my drawing with making quilts. Also, how I was inspired by the mis-matched patterns of old-time patchwork quilts, and tried to preserve that kind of spontaneity and humor in my own work.

And since I was standing in front of this quilt, (thanks for this photo Robert Duncan:) I used it to explain how I enjoy putting memories of objects and people I love into my work. For instance, on long road trips I often eat those little white powdered donuts you buy at the gas station. So when I made this quilt, I was thinking about how the aliens had been on a really long road trip to get to Earth, and gave them some white donuts and Tang for the trip.

Photo of the opening by Lisa Call who gave a good talk (read her funny version of her road trip with sharks) about her own work Fencing In or Keeping Out and since she was curator for the show, about the other artists — Deidre Adams, Joanie San Chirico, and Jeanne Williamson. The Lux is a great art center with 20 year history, and the show looked great. Here’s a photo gallery of the whole show on Flickr.

Filed Under exhibitions, other artists, quilts | 6 Comments

International Quilt Study Center and Museum

April 8, 2008

While in Lincoln, I was able to sneak over to the new International Quilt Center and Museum very early in the morning before the sun rose, because I had heard the new sculpture in front of the building was beautifully lit.

The sculpture by Linda Fleming is called “Reverie” (daydream) is wonderful to walk around and through — lots of different viewpoints and even some matching fantasy chairs inside the structure.

The museum itself is another work of art designed by architects Robert R.M. Stern of New York. The wall of glass front facade wraps about interior gathering spaces, exhibition rooms, and will house the world’s largest collection of quilts. Currently and through the summer exhibits include: Quilts In Common from the museum’s collection and Nancy Crow: Cloth, Culture, and Context which traces the development of Nancy Crow as a studio artist.

Lisa and I also got a chance to see another beautiful exhibit of quilts by Michael James in Lincoln’s historic Haymarket District. You can see a slideshow of James’ “The Life in a Day” series of quilts based on abstracted photographic imagery on the Modern Arts Midwest gallery website here.

Filed Under other artists, quilts, sculpture | 6 Comments

Sticks and Mosses

January 31, 2008

Ruth Asawa - tied wire sculpture from www.ruthasawa.com

I’ve been studying the art and life of Ruth Asawa, a Japanese American artist who among many other things, crocheted and wove beautiful sculptures out of simple wire with her fingers.

You can read my essay on her life and art that I wrote last night for my first contribution to the Ragged Cloth Cafe art discussion blog. What I didn’t say in my academic approach for the RCC, was my personal reflections on this artist’s life story.

In my research, I found that at age 16 she was interned in the same Japanese American internment camps that my grandparents were sent to during World War II — first the temporary housing in horse race stables in California, then one of umpteen permanent camps spread throughout western and midwest U.S. This was something that happened to people of Japanese heritage living on mainland US. because of racial discrimination and war hysteria, regardless of the fact that many were U.S. citizens.

Asawa and my family happened to end up in the same camp at Rowher, Arkansas. I once tried to find the remains of this camp a few years ago but nothing was left. My family never says much about camp — my father was too young and my grandmother had the common Japanese attitude of shigatakani… and so it goes.

I once asked her what they did all that time in camp by the cypress swamp that smelled of rotten eggs, and she said, “oh, taught each other things, like ikebana.” (Japanese flower-arranging). “Of course,” she said, “There were no flowers in Rowher, so we used what we had, sticks and mosses.”

Filed Under other artists | 13 Comments

How to Survive as an Artist

January 14, 2008

A least if I’m not getting a lot of work done in the studio right now, I’m having fun with my materials!

Here’s a wonderful picture story from cartoonist Grady Klein that uses humor and gives some advice about struggling with the artist’s “inner demon” while creating a work of artistic expression. He calls it “How to Survive Writing a Graphic Novel,” but I think it could apply to most artists. What do you think?

Filed Under other artists, studio | 8 Comments

Bemis Center Art Auction

December 6, 2007

I’ve been doing some small experiments lately to more closely bridge my drawing and work with cloth. This is a shoe I sat next to at the Bemis Center art auction a few weeks ago, a great place to see and draw lots of characters.

Based in Omaha, Nebraska, the Bemis Center is an artist-residency program in a historic downtown building with great galleries for exhibitions and community out-reach programs, and right across the street from Jun Kaneko’s studios and upcoming creativity museum ( a link to our visit there last year) and (and day two.)

The art auction was the slicked operation I’ve seen in a long time. It was packed, there was great food, open bar, and three sections of silent auctions, a buy-it-now room, and the live auction. It’s well supported by artists, because the artists can set their minimum, get 50 percent of the selling price (same as a gallery), and the Bemis provides education about the artist and unique creative experiences for many.

Of course the top dollar part was the live auction. If attendees wanted to keep the party going, they could stay noisy in the buy-it-now room, and still watch and bid over a big-screen closed network. In fact all the key staff were wired for communication, and before the end of the night, the silent auction items were labeled and bubble-wrapped for taking home. (update: just found out the auction raised a whopping $440,000!)

We bought a James Surls linocut, and something really big that we’re going to have fetch with a truck, so more adventures coming….Thanks Russ for the photos. Since I was so busy drawing, I didn’t have time to take any myself, except for this one. Uh, make that a truck and a trailer!

Filed Under journeys, other artists, quilts | 3 Comments

Kobo at Higo

October 25, 2007

Kobo at Higo was my favorite stop on the last trip. Located in an old Japanese department store in the International District of Seattle, it’s named for the Japanese word kobo meaning “artist’s workspace.”

The Kobo gallery features an eclectic mix of changing exhibits of Japanese and Pacific Northwest fine craft (although I also saw some New York artist’s ceramics on the shelves), traditional Japanese merchandise artfully arranged, contemporary stuff like UglyDolls, and great kid’s books. They have a display of old Japanese folk toys, and when I peeked behind the partitions that said “employees only,” I could see all kinds of Japanese tins and merchandise left from old times.

The whole place filled me with a kind of quiet reflection on the history of the Japanese-American evacuation during WWII, and a nostalgia for my great-uncle’s pharmacy in old Japan town in San Jose. Adding to that feeling, around the corner is the Panama hotel, now tea shop, that features photos of Seattle’s Japan town of the 1940’s.

Just two blocks over is Kinokuniya bookstore in the Uwajimaya village — a great place to immerse yourself in Japanese art and craft books and all those funky Japanese stationery supplies.

Filed Under journeys, other artists | 2 Comments

Moleskine Tour (detour)

October 20, 2007

When I travel I carry a little Moleskine sketchbook –these are sketches of some Cameroon masks I saw in the Portland Musuem of Art last year. Invariably, mine gets stuffed with scratchy notes, phone numbers, to-do lists….

Not these folk though. These YouTube video tours of artist’s Moleskines is one of the coolest things I’ve found on the internet in a long time, and if you’re a fan of sketchbooking, journaling, or scrapbooking, you’ll probably like them too. Here’s a tour of my favorites. Most are 2-3 minutes, and I just learned you can click the right-hand box under the video to make it full screen if you want.

Paul Davis (illustrator) notebook: Lots of colorful portraits of people with Picassoesque noses, plus clever collages.

Paula Scher (graphic designer) notebook: Alpha-doodles with lots of fancy and funky fonts. Paula’s sketchbook intrigued me, so I looked up her website and found her map paintings to be wonderful.

Celia Squire (artist/London) notebook: Nostalgic-style ink drawings of this storyboard artist fill the pages.

Stefano Faravelli (artist/Turin) notebook: A beautiful travel-style journal that folds out out into one long composition.

Remy Bardin (student/Santiago) notebook - “One year in Chile”: This one moves more slowly, but then the guy worked a whole year on it, so five minutes doesn’t seem too long after all. Some interesting fold-outs, unexpected changes in style, and orginal music.

Douglas + Francoise Kirland (photographer + curator) notebook: This one reads like a personal album, but the photos are always collaged in a interesting manner.

Dave Egger (writer) notebook: A writer’s cryptic drawings with titles.

Antonia Jorge Goncalves (artist/Lisboa) notebook: The nose book — he drew many people, then cut the pages of the book in the shape of their nose.

Joachim Robert (artist/Paris) notebook: Drawings, collage, cartoons, and a bit of painting.

Wilson and Restrepo (artists/London) notebook: Mostly wax pastel drawings. Abstract and surface design artists will like this one. Some messy fingers at the end.

Detour the Moleskine London Exhibition: I’ve always been a fan of art books, but could never see a way they could be shared. This short video shows an exhibition, and we can derive how it’s spawned these videos. I smell a clever Moleskine marketing campaign, but doesn’t matter — I’m ready to jump on board!

p.s. Just found Birget Brenner’s notebook made with thread.

Filed Under drawings, media, other artists | 10 Comments

Tacoma Museum of Glass

October 18, 2007

These are the Crystal Towers on the Bridge of Glass, which was designed by Dale Chihuly and architect Arthur Andersson to connect downtown Tacoma to the Museum of Glass. Inside this dramatic tower that looks like the space shuttle crashed into the earth is the hot glass studio.

On the other side of the museum, the gallery held the exhibit Mining Glass, featuring eight artists who did installations using glass, including Kiki Smith. Here’s an interesting article about her use of craft to achieve fine art by Chuck Close for Time.

I couldn’t take photos in the exhibit, so instead I wrote quotes from the artists in my journal. Since some of them were diametrically opposed to how I think and work, I thought they were worth some reflection.

“It’s useful to think that you choose materials just way you’d choose words.” Kiki Smith

“I want the meaning to be embedded so to speak, in the material that I’m using. I choose the material as an expansion of a concept or sometimes in opposition to it.” Mona Hatoum

“Once I realize a connection between concepts, then it’s a matter of finding a visual form that fits the idea…that image then gets stripped down so that there’s just the merest suggestion of it.” Teresita Fernandez

Filed Under journeys, other artists | 11 Comments

Olympic Sculpture Park

October 16, 2007

Sunday was a beautiful day in Seattle. The last sunny day, my friend Susan told me, for the next nine months, so a great day to tour the new Olympic Sculpture Park. It’s a zigzaggy park that switches back and forth, up and down over reclaimed brown fields surrounding the railroad that runs along Elliot Bay.

Here’s one of Calder’s stabiles (as opposed to his mobiles.) Look at the little bird perched on the very tip of the piece, which happens to be titled Eagle.

Serra’s powerful Wake was designed using computers and a demilitarized machine that once made French nuclear submarines.

But my favorite of the day was artist/furniture-maker/architect Roy McMakin’s landscape installation called Love and Loss. It’s full of verbal and visual puns — L is the high bench, O is the table, S is the lower bench, another S is a stair-stepping sidewalk. Look closely, the painted bark on the tree makes the V in LoVe - a tree that seasonally blooms and loses leaves in nature’s cycles, much as our own lives have such cycles.

You can see all the sculptures in the park on a flash tour on the SAM site, which thoughtfully shows the full park overview and where each piece is located

Susan drove us around town in her bright red Mini, to Uwajimaya for fresh crabs and oysters, and to her house to eat them. Also to Kobo on Capital Hill. If you embrace wabi-sabi like Christine, check out their cool site. Today I’ll try to get to the other Kobo to see the exhibit of wax and ink drawings.

Filed Under journeys, other artists, sculpture | 2 Comments

The World of Robert E. Smith

September 21, 2007

Robert E. Smith, a self-taught outsider artist who has been featured in the Museum of American Folk Art, will be 80 next month. To put together this show at the MSU Art & Design Gallery that spans over thirty years of work, collectors loaned 140 of his paintings for the exhibition. It’s a rare opportunity to become immersed in the wacky and entertaining world of Robert E.

One of the paintings that we loaned is the basis for this downtown mural, and we won it at the auction to raise funds for the mural. But our painting is better because the artists who interpreted the mural for Robert smashed the painting a bit — ours is longer and skinnier.

But they did pretty much capture the spirit of the original painting. In this detail you can see some of the trademarks of Robert’s story-paintings — famous people like Ray Charles or Santa Claus appear frequently, as does Baby Jane, current events, and personal landmarks from Robert’s memory. If you haven’t already figured it out, Robert has been a major influence on my art.

I love the busy activity and texture of his paintings, the tiny details that you have to get in close to see, but most importantly, the humor of the mysterious stories. This painting that I had never seen before is called, “Mercy Hospital, County Jail.”

Robert sometimes records his stories on tape, attaching the cassette tapes to the back of his paintings. He also writes cartoon books, giving himself titles that he fancies such as “moody artist” or “notable folk-artist.” To see more paintings, go to the Good Girl Art Gallery.

Filed Under Inspiration, exhibitions, other artists | 6 Comments

Steven Holl’s Bloch Building

September 18, 2007

We’re just back from Kansas City and the new Bloch Building, the long-awaited addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Steven Holl is a genius! The addition was so much more wonderful than I expected. As this New York Times review reports, much of the enjoyment of the building comes from the changing light of the translucent building throughout the day, but most dramatic was the late night view — although it would have been much better if the Henry Moore sculpture walk had also been lit for a night-time stroll.

What’s also great is the play between interior and exterior spaces like this section of the Noguchi gallery. What you may not realize at first is big chunks of the museum are buried underground, so you can actually go out a door, around a path, and next you’re on the grassy roof-tops of this gallery looking out over the sculpture garden and Kansas City below.

The Bloch Building juxtaposes the classical architecture of the original musuem, but the best part, in a time when some trendy museums are made more for the architecture and less for showing art, the Bloch Building shows the art admirably.

For more amazing interior photos, go to this Inhabitat article.

Filed Under journeys, other artists | 6 Comments

Taping for Quilting Arts TV

September 10, 2007

Here I am, a little surprised to be standing by the effervescent Patricia Bolton (Pokey) of Quilting Arts Magazine fame for taping of a guest artist segment for the new Quilting Arts TV that will soon air on PBS. I say surprised because it was a scary trip, through a massive three-hour the-sky-must-be-falling rainstorm that almost made us miss our plane. Luckily Russ took that race-car driving class in the rain last fall and was able to avoid a terrible wreck on a bridge, and luckily I had lots of sealing tape in the car so I could waterproof my cardboard box of quilts.

And luckily, we got to Cleveland in time to visit the tv studio and unpack my gear AND attend a couple of art openings, the 125th anniversary show at the Cleveland Institute of Art and another one at an artist-run alternative gallery called Spaces.

But the next morning, I realize I’ve brought waaay too much stuff. Not wanting to follow the tried and true formula for a step-by-step project on camera as was suggested, I brought a big quilt to assemble live so viewers could feel the excitement of seeing a project come together. Before when I did a documentary with PBS, I just acted natural, and they edited it later. What I didn’t realize, this time the process was different. We had to do it right in front of the camera in real time. Yikes!

Though I had pre-camera jitters and all the layers of studio makeup made me feel a bit like a Kabuki actor, Pokey and the producer were able to help me streamline and focus. In fact with Pokey’s gentle cues, we did the whole segment in one take. Yay! Only thing that to be edited out was my mistake at naming a certain product that goes by the initials of W.U.

Since I went first, I had the rest of the day to enjoy watching the other artists do their gigs, and Pokey do her in-between bits.

I loved the opportunity to study closely the work of Mary Ann Tipple who brought her series of “Things Your Mother Warned You About” based on vintage photos of her mom (now 92 but still on a bowling team) and dad — collaged, painted, and stitched on cotton duck canvas. I think this one is called, “Drinking.”

Here’s the other artists in the lunchroom — Laura Cater-Woods and Wendy Richardson — with guest artists like this and Pokey’s infectious enthusiasm, the show’s going to be a good one. Hiding in the back is Russ, the photographer of most all these photos. Thanks Russ! I wish Judy Perez who is also going to be on the Pictorial quilts episode with me could have been there, but she doesn’t tape until Tuesday.

Best of all at the end of the day, my quilts were in front of the camera and I was behind it — which I much prefer. But get a look at this camera — I felt like I was in some spacey sci-fi studio with that big camera zooming up, down, and close-in to animate across my quilts.

Filed Under journeys, media, other artists | 16 Comments

Niki in the Garden

July 20, 2007

Occasionally a show comes along that so exciting and full of life, color and joy that it’s difficult to fit it into a simple blog post. This is true of Niki in the Garden at Chicago’s Garfield Park Conservatory. Over 30 larger-than-life sculptures by Niki de Saint Phalle are installed in the already wonderful greenhouses and gardens of the park.

Besides designing sculpture parks and theatre sets, she was also an actress and model. In a video of her life, she is shown doing a series of large assemblages with paint enclosed in plaster — she used a shotgun to shoot the plaster so the paint would explode across the surface of the piece. What a crazy lady! (and as always, I use the term ‘crazy’ with affection and admiration!)

Phalle is know for her multi-colored Nanas that boldly dance and sometimes even spout water. An exhibit placard explained Phalle’s inspiration, “Nanas are like goddesses to me, even superwomen of the sort, primitive tribes idolized. Perhaps they’re aggressive — that’s what some men think. They certainly know what they want, but they are warm, not mean.”

In addition to Nanas, there are huge totems, alligators you can climb, cats in which you can cuddle, man-chairs for sitting, and an amazing skull lined with a mosaic-mirrored interior complete with bench and delicious pearly teeth.

Phalle’s work is covered with seductive surfaces that are delight to examine closer because the materials are so well composed and crafted.

(click on any thumbnail for a larger view) After just seeing Cloud Gate at Millenium Park, I was intrigued by the coicidence that Phalle’s “Large Firebird on Arch” had a similar, and yet totally different effect. Like Cloud Gate, Phalle’s mirrored surfaces reflect sky and land, but in a fractured, more complex way. (far left detail above)

A couple of pieces in a quiet corner of a garden caught my eye. These pieces are not volumetric like most of the show, but are almost linear sketches in air, filled with small toys, symbols and objects. As in all her other works, Phalle shows a judicious use of color and detail.

Phalle says, “When my lungs were severely damaged by working with polyester, air came into my life. I had to learn how to breathe again, breathe deeply. The Skinnys reflect that change.”

If you have a chance, run, don’t walk to Garfield Conservatory before this show ends on Oct. 31. Plan on not only seeing wonderful art, but pack a lunch (or buy a hotdog for a buck) and enjoy the whole day.

And I haven’t even posted all my photos of the exotic plants and flowers. I’ll leave that to your imagination….

Filed Under Inspiration, exhibitions, journeys, other artists | 19 Comments

keep looking »

Moving a Sculpture, or this weekend reminds me why I make quilts

Mosiacs at Dallas International Terminal D

What did I say at the Lux?

International Quilt Study Center and Museum

Sticks and Mosses

How to Survive as an Artist

Bemis Center Art Auction

Kobo at Higo

Moleskine Tour (detour)

Tacoma Museum of Glass

Olympic Sculpture Park

The World of Robert E. Smith

Steven Holl’s Bloch Building

Taping for Quilting Arts TV

Niki in the Garden

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