Snapshots at the Pompidou

Painting 1

Many of you know that I traveled to Germany this summer in connection with Color Improvisations in which my work was shown. After the opening we continued our trip to Paris, France and enjoyed a week of museums, gardens and fun with family.

I was very impressed with the beautiful condition of many of the museums as my only other trip to France was in 1987 and much restoration has taken place since that time. While we enjoyed all the impressionist work which is in abundance, my favorite art was at the Pompidou Center in the Musee National D'Art Moderne.

One of the new features of the museums is that most allow you to take snapshots of the work in their permanent collections as long as you don't use your flash. I suspect that there is a lot of art on a lot of cell phones these days. This is all great fun but if most of the visitors are like me, they become so delighted in this opportunity that they don't take good notes and thus have images of work they admired but don't have the artists name to go with the image. Actually I took photographs of most of the labels but can't read them ;-( Being an artists who exhibits, this is a sad thing to have to admit.

So....having confessed to my sins, I want to share a few images of work I can not identify.

I want to start with the piece at the top of this article. My thinking is that the process of "piecing" fabric is All About Shape. All About Shape is the title of a workshop I am teaching this weekend and I have structured the course to show people how to generate shapes beyond squares. When I look at this painting it just makes me happy. This is a composition with shapes I believe most artist who work in fabric can relate to. The work demonstrate expert use of Repetition, Unity, Variety, Positive and Negative Space, Movement, Gradation etc. etc.

Painting 2

You can see from my badly cropped photo that this piece is very wide but only about 4' high. Interesting proportion I thought. I love the simplicity of the black and white and the beautiful overall texture created by the swirling marks. This made me think of the piece by Violet Cravasa in Color Improvisations. Violets quilt was pieced but I can see the creation of this surface in a resist or direct painting on fabric.

Painting 2 detail

Drawing 1

I am not a hundred percent sure at this point if this is a painting, drawing or print I just know I loved it and I'll call it a drawing! I love the subtle color of the "paper" and the marks, the erasures, the smudges and the energy. I also immediately saw an underlying structure in this piece that I relate to. Do you see it? This linework could be stitching or screened or or or....

Fabric Collage 1

I'm calling this piece a fabric collage because that is indeed what it is. There are corsets, petticoats, and other under garments arranged in relation to one another and is presented underglass. I could not tell if the fabrics has been treated in any way to keep them in place or even stitched. The fabric is discolored and beginning to discentegrate and this aging only added the the appeal for me as it is a way of marking time.

Fabric Collage 2

This is another example of a Fabric Collage that is more abstract and more worn. The fabrics are linen and cotten and very sheer but roughly woven. There are stains and tears and patches throughout. This work reminded me of a dress that Dorothy Caldwell show in a class I attended last summer. Dorothy is known for the massive amount of handstitching she incorporates in her work and her love of handwork as a labour of love done by women all over the world. This Fabric Collage referenced work, distress, trials and tribulations and stitching to hold things together.

Fabric Collage 2 detail

These are only a few of the images I collected and my apologies to the artists for not being able to share there names. I chose these specific images because to my eye, each one of them has a direct tie to textiles, textile processes or because they simply made me think of textile potential.

There is lots and lots of discussion by artists who work in textiles about wanting to show their work is museums and galleries but being turned away because many of these venues don't show textiles. The shows we saw at the Pompidou Center demonstrated that it can happen. We just have to keep working and spreading the word.

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The Expressive Stitch

I returned home 2 weeks ago from Quilting by the Lake where I took a course with artist Dorothy Caldwell. The workshop was entitled The Expressive Stitch and was focused on the use of kantha embroidery as used in India.


Dorothy shared her passion for this form of stitching and brought large pieces the size of bed coverings which showed how this type of stitching is used to make what I call "story quilts." I don't think Dorothy used that term but the pieces do tell the stories of the events of day to day life as well as important events in the villages where these women live. Unfortunately, the photos I shot during this class are of such poor quality that I am not going to post but a few. My description of these works is that there are designated women who do the planning and drawing of the work and then the stitching is shared among the group. They take sections of the pieces home and work on them and then assemble the entire work when completed. They are both simple and complex and very charming despite some very serious cultural depictions such as bride burning, widow burning etc.


We were given the assignment of creating a group of 4 images that related to one another using something that was very topical in our lives (forgive me Dorothy...at this point that is my memory of the assignment) I choose to start with a funny little man who sat next to me on my flight to the workshop. He was too big for the seat and smelled bad. I then did his "girlfriend", his dog and his snake.




Stinky, Marcella, Little Pup and Curley Q


In all honesty, I am not sure why we spent so much time on these pieces but something interesting did happen. I am not a writer, but as I continued to work on these images a story began to develop about the relationships between the four characters and I spent several hours yesterday writing a 7, 800 word story about them. Trust me, I have never done that before in my life unless it was an assignment. The relationships were so clear and the story just sort of flowed out. I am going to edit just a bit and send the story to my workshop classmates and Dorothy. I may post here later but I'll have to really think about that.



Wall of Small Works


This is a shot of some of the small pieces done by other members of the group. They do make an interesting group. Wonderful to see all the different images.




Time Lines


The second exercise we worked on was a Time line. I won't reveal what we did or how but the above image is only part of three different time lines done by three different people. The one on the bottom is part of mine. These pieces allowed us to explore more free form ways of using stitching and again, there was a wonderful array of approaches demonstrated.


Dorothy's lecture showing the work of artists who use stitching was fantastic as were the printed materials and artifacts she brought to share. She also spoke with us briefly about her own work and did a private "consultation" with each member of the class who wanted this interaction. The private time I shared with Dorothy was meaningful and insightful.


I personally have been feeling a desire for change in my work brought on by my weekly textile constructions and this workshop has also contributed to new "words" in my art vocabulary. I have completed 2 new WTC's since returning (they will be posted soon) and I used stitching in both. Thank you Dorothy.


This Monday I will be posting images of the Second Stage of Compositional Conversation as well as a mini-profile of Rebecca Howdeshell. Hope to see you then.