Susie Monday . El Cielo Studio

Bus and street reflections, St. Petersburg

SPACE is one of big time favorites.  I work from and within spaces whether I am working on an art quilt, art cloth or, wearing one of my other hats, as a museum and exhibit designer.  As a textile artist, I like working with unusual spaces, and often my work is shaped or irregular, simply because that seems much more interesting to me than a rectangle or square. It may be one of the reasons I like textile arts in general -- the spacial use and ideas are much more diverse than that of the space of a painting -- which is all created by illusion of depth of field -- the one kind of space I'm NOT that interested in.

Here are a few of the photos from this summer's Scandinavian travels that have particularly strong use of SPACE. (This is part of a series of nine photo collections that record different aspects of the Sensory Alphabet -- a tool I use for organizing images, working creatively and collecting input and organizing new ideas.

The British Museum with Kings Crossing in the background

Arcade, St. Petersburg

Berlin, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Berlin

Church on Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg

Sometime around midnight, somewhere in the Baltic SeaPerhaps the most stunning and interesting photographs from my recent travels in Scandinavia were those with strong LIGHT content -- not only because photography is all about light, but because the quality of those 20 plus hour days of daylight were so potently active as to our psychic relationship to the space and time. Daytime has a much more expansive meaning when the sun "goes down" at about 11:30 pm and rises at 3 am, and truely, it never is really dark. The white nights of Russia, Finland, Sweden certainly color the activity and spirit of the places. Even though we were ship-bound in the evenings and nights due to our sailing schedule, it was easy to see that the lives of all the ports went on way into the wee hours. There were truely more hours in the day to do things and in general, people seemed intent upon enjoyment of all the pleasures of daylight. Guess it shapes your summer when you know 18 hours plus of dark is coming all too soon!

Linda in a Light exhbit at the Design Museum in CopenhagenConservatory at the Sculpture Museum, Glyptotek, in Copenhagen. Along the River Neva, St. Petersburg White Nights

More from the ship

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin

Next up: the  shape collection from the summer travels. (Previous installments in the two previous posts include Movement and Color, see the sidebar for links.)
Some things I might try from these inspirations:

1. Think of the grid as a pattern of shapes and use it as did the artist who designed the Berlin Holocaust Memorial.

2. Try making a columnar shaped art quilt, like the Estonian tower.

3. Use the paving stone and manhole cover collection (I took lots of these photos) to make thermofax screens for an art cloth series.

4. Use the shapes of the plaster casts from the Victoria & Albert Museum to inspire some altar-shaped pieces.

5. Make a phototransfer of that lovely urn from Kensington Garden.

 Manhole Cover - Berlin

Newton, Sculpture at the British Library

Tower in Tallinn, Estonia, UNESCO World Heritage Site

Medieval stone carving, plaster cast at the V&A, LondonUrn, Kensington Gardens, London

 Tallinn, Estonia, Old Town

More photos from the Scandinavian trip this summer: these screamed "color" when I went though the digital stacks. I love digital photography, but you have to admit that it makes editing an essential part of the process. Back in the film days, I could never have brought home 2000 plus photos! If you've just tuned in, I'm taking the next seven days (plus yesterday and today) to post pictures from our big summer trip/cruise sorted by categories of the Sensory Alphabet.

Here are some ways that colors in photogrphs (my own and other's) inspire my work:

1. If theiy're mine, I use the photos directly, printed on fabric or other strange materials, then use them as a collage element in my art quilts, or even as stand-alone small fiber pieces with stitching and over-printing.

2. I notice what works compositionally with color in a favorite photo, then let that proportion or relationship inform a piece of work.

3. I like to play a color matching game, mixing colors of paint or dye to match a color that I find striking in a photo or painting.

4. Especially with photos of the natural world, I find new and unusually color schemes that I wouldn't ordinarily think about. Coor is such an important element in my work, I am always working from both intuitive.

While specific images from this trip have not yet found their way into my work, I have gotten some interesting ideas for some new workshops, coming soon to this blog. Meanwhile, here's the color selection to inspire your work!

Grocer's shelf near Highgate Village, LondonHydranga blooms at the V&A, London

Very old stained glass panel in the V&A collection

 St. Petersburg, Russia

Summer Palace outside St. Petersburg