Familiarity

Now this is what I meant to say when someone asked me why I do what I do:

"The medium of fiber appeals to a broader audience because it uses familiar materials and techniques and thus provides a more accessible and understandable art form. How many people sleep between paintings or put on metal pants in the morning?"

Susan Taber Avila is one of a number of San Francisco Bay fiber artists  whose work appears in the on-line gallery www.fiberscene.com. (She's also a co-founder of the website.) This excerpt from her artist statement took me from surfing  dead stop. Sometimes I wonder why I don't paint or sculpt or do something else -- and I'm not even sure about whether I think the familiar materials do make fiber arts more accessible and understandable to the general public -- but I know I connect in a way that I don't to painting and more traditional art disciplines or media.

I sometimes feel really stupid about my work, with its narrative and folkloric content, with its purposeful naivete. I mean, I did go to art school. Shouldn't I do something more sophisticated or important or serious.  Do I sound whiny again? Perhaps its about the familiarity of storytelling. Or maybe I need to let myself try something serious.

Thanks, Susan, for putting it so well.  And letting me mutter about this.

FASA Annual Exhibit

Ego whining aside. The Fiber Artists of San Antonio Annual Exhibition is a strong show. Upon seeing the exhibit hung, I was pleased to be associated (as president this year) with the organization and its ambitions. Here are pictures of just a few of the 16 entries (of 79 submissions) that are in the exhibit. The show will be at the Southwest School of Art and Craft through December, and the installation showcases each piece wonderfully. The tendency in many of our fiber arts exhibits in the past has been to include too many pieces -- this show, thanks to the restraint and standards of juror Amie Adelman, gives each work space and air to breathe, so important in a group show without a common theme or medium.

I am uploading the photos now, without their proper titles, but I will return to this post later today with all the details -- for now, here are the names of the artists and what I know about the works.

 

Top to bottom

"Equine Curiousity," Amy Jones, mixed media sculptue, Warrior Artist Award

 

"Oh My Sole,"  Rachel Ridder Edwards, one of a series of embellished shoes, Best of Show

"Life Cycles," Laura Beehler, layered silk organza with leaves and seeds, Second Place

"I'll Fly Away," Caryl Gaubatz, jacket from silk earth dyed and rusted, stitched embellishments

"Protection Against Aging: Body as Passport," Mary Ann Johnson, tunic created from facial wipes and other recycled materials -- a piece inspired by thinking about our future world, iris identification

 

 

 

 

   

Juried

Spent Tuesday as a silent observer during the jurying of the San Antonio Fiber Artist’s annual exhibit – the third time I’ve been an observer for such a process. Do this a few times and it takes away all the questions one has about how personal is this process and how the acceptance or rejection of one’s work is subject to individual impulse and opinion – even with skilled professional jurors who bring all their experience and expertise to bear on the process.  And how the pool and variety of other work to be hung influences the choices. And how different people weigh different elements. (More than one work that had won an award in another exhibit, or was included in another, equally professionally juried show, didn’t get in this one.)

Still.
My work didn’t make the cut and that stings the ego.
The remedy for me was to make something simple, something not too challenging today. To get back on the horse as it were, but not the untamed bronc.

Also, I have to acknowledge that at least one of the pieces I submitted didn’t really work in one way or another – even if it wasn’t, for me, the way the juror said it didn’t work. (We were anonymous observers; the juror not familiar with our work, so we heard the comments, as well as got the reviewing sheets with written remarks.) Sometimes I get so far down the track on a piece that it just has to be done the way it gets done – and that was the case in the largest and most ambitious of the work that I entered.

Moving Sound/Sound Movies

 

First, moving sound. And something, too, about our use of carbon fuels. Changing worlds. How to make it come clear. 

Two movies engaged us this weekend, on DVDs of course (I keep forgetting to go the real movies when I am in town). About the first, I won't say much, except, forget what ever prejudices you may hold for or against Al Gore, and see "An Inconvenient Truth."  I resisted it, fearing that I would only become more depressed about the future of the environment, but, he makes a compelling case that, should the political and cultural will be found, the scientific solutions are already known.

 

 On a lighter note, but no less profound for those of us fascinated with human perception, creativity and the power of the individual who finds her/his true path -- "Touch the Sound" -- a documentary unlike any other, hosted by Grammy award winning percussionist Evelyn Glennie. Ms. Glennie, though hearing impaired, is a renowned musician, and this film explores her vision of sound. A vision that the film makers share with us though images so auditory, they are the filmic equivalent of Arthur Dove's paintings.  (If you know of any other painter who gets sound like he does, let me know -- I'm working on a book for parents and kids about cross-form perception and creativity.)