Sherri Woodard Coffey

This picture looked familiar, and so it was. I wrote about Edward Curtis before, but the NYTimes has a review of a new book about him, including a slide show of photographs. Sometimes I think it’s better to not know much about people. Art is much easier to appreciate then. Not true, really, but the knowledge of the person behind the work does influence the emotion that a work can invoke. Or maybe not…what about you?

Moving on to another segment of our history…I love quilts and own some very old ones. I also have quilts made by my grandmother, using scraps from clothing, not only from my dresses, but also from my sisters. However, I don’t think of quilts as a story telling venue.

Back in June (yes, I know, that was months ago), there was a review for an exhibit at the American Textile Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts. This exhibit is about textiles from the Civil War era. A quote from the review:

To cut off the Confederate Army from access to new uniforms, tents and bedding, the Union troops even kidnapped female knitters, weavers and seamstresses and deported them northward. “You don’t just let them stay there so they can move a hundred miles south and work in another mill,” said Madelyn Shaw, a curator of the exhibition “Homefront & Battlefield: Quilts & Context in the Civil War,” opening Saturday at the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, Mass.

Check out the review, because books and another exhibit are mentioned.

Several months ago, I heard about this upcoming exhibition, which did not enthuse me at all. What I was really thinking about was—silly me—how would Frida feel about her belongings on display. Clothing is so personal. I really don’t know why that occurred to me, after all celebrities bare all everyday. And maybe that’s it. Frida was an artist and many artists only want to bare all in their work. But I have to admit, I find these costumes fascinating. And take a look at the boot below, or rather artificial limb. Just that little tidbit means that I’m going to have to read about Frida. Why does she have an artificial limb?

Regional Tehuana dresses used by Mexican painter Frida Khalo are exhibited at her museum in Mexico City. Kahlo’s unique style has long-inspired designers, now 300 items from her wardrobe will make up a new exhibition. Source

An artificial limb with a boot used by Mexican painter Frida Khalo. Kahlo’s unique style has long-inspired designers, now 300 items from her wardrobe will make up a new exhibition in Mexico City.

Google Art Project: http://www.googleartproject.com/artist/frida-kahlo/4130074/ where you can see 22 of her artworks.

Other interesting links:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2213525/Frida-Kahlo-fashion-icon-new-exhibit-reveals-stiff-corsets-skirts-concealed-failing-health.html

http://www.artinfo.com/photo-galleries/slideshow-appearances-can-be-deceiving-the-dresses-of-frida/?image=8

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/831406/enduring-fashion-frida-kahlos-influential-wardrobe-to-go-on

Detail: The Sources 2, Weaving: combination of warp painting and weft painting hand plied yarn of cotton, silk, linen, and rayon, fiber reactive dyes

Janet Austin posted on Facebook about Fuyuko Matsubara, which led to an hour of perusing not only Matsubara, but other fiber artists as well. All of these are on the World of Threads Festival website. Here’s what Matsubara says about her process:

My weaving process is quite elaborate. I entitle my technique “A combination of warp painting and weft painting.” I weave four white cloths first with my own plied yarn with different fibres. Then I paint with dyes. After washing, I take them apart and put them into one weaving. The images and colours are woven in, rather than on the cloth. It is a complex and time-consuming process and requires a detailed plan. Before I start weaving, I work on drawing and painting in order to develop my imagery.

All I can say is, “Wow!”

Looking through these interviews, I came across Jenine Shereos. Another Wow! is in order here. There are several images of leaf skeletons, which I love. Then I read the materials used. Human hair!

Leaf Series, human hair, 2011 (Photo: Robert Diamante)

The intricacies of a leaf’s veining are recreated by wrapping and knotting together human hair. This complex network of lines mimics the organic patterns found in nature and speaks to the natural system of growth and decay. Allusions to the vascular tissue of plants and the vascular system of the human body exist simultaneously with references to traditional lace-making techniques, Victorian hair jewelry, and the cultural memory of lace.

Notice that she has a leaf series. More about working in a series later.

Since education is on my mind, thought I’d mention a couple more. I mentioned the Khan Academy before. They have an Introduction to Art History section. Even though the topics look really interesting, they are videos. I would much rather read than watch a video on my computer. But I may force myself to watch one called The Skill of Describing. I really don’t know, but I’m hoping that it’s a “talking about art” video. Which brings me to another topic.

Structures #98
©2008
29″ x 30″
$2800
Available at Bluestone Fine Art Gallery

I have recently been taking a class from Lisa Call about Working in a Series. You can see what is included in the eight week workshop by following the link. Lisa provided lots of information about various artists and their works in a series. We were also given assignments based on design principles and some questions about the process and the design we ended up with. Through this process, I have ended up with several designs I like and the possibility of doing a series. And this brings me full circle back to the first paragraph: I learned that I don’t know how to talk about art, how to analyze and critique, not just my art, but other art as well. Now, generally, I find artspeak silly, but some standard vocabulary would be helpful. Something to work on.

It’s an amazing world we live in! A few weeks ago, I read that the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its digitized publications. Truly amazing the scope of available works there. They cover topics from African Art to Prehistory. Above is a title that might be appealing to weavers and dyers, downloadable as a PDF.
Then last week, while doing errands, I heard about education opportunity on our locally produced radio program Think.  The Khan Academy is a free site for online classes. They say that they have “207,126,559 lessons delivered” and “Learn almost anything for free.” I haven’t had time to explore there yet, but did click on the Art History tab. Here’s what’s available there:

• 
  

  Art History

• Topics
• Introduction to Art History
• – 400 C.E. Ancient Cultures
• 400-1300 Medieval Era
• 1300-1400 Proto-Renaissance
• 1400-1500 Renaissance in Italy and the North
• 1500-1600 End of the Renaissance and the Reformation
• 1600-1700 The Baroque
• 1700-1800 Age of Enlightenment
• 1800-1848 Industrial Revolution I
• 1848-1907 Industrial Revolution II
• 1907-1960 Age of Global Conflict
• 1960- Age of Post-Colonialism

Still busy redoing my website. I’m thinking of moving my blog to WordPress, since that’s where the website will be. Not sure about importing all those posts, though. Another recent find in the WSJ was an article called A Champion of the Wari. The Incas have always been a fascination of mine and I only really became aware of the Wari at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. My post about that is here. I love this quote:

“I wanted to choose a culture important to the Inca,” and the Wari—who were to the Inca as the Greeks were to the Romans—fit. “The Wari material is more beautiful than the Inca,” Ms. Bergh adds. Of course, that’s subjective. But where Inca art tends to be geometric, abstract, muted in color and simple in composition, she says, Wari objects are more figurative and rendered in “riotous colors.”

Follow the link for some beautiful Wari images.

Tapestry Tunic in the Wari Style from Peru

(courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art)

South America, Peru, Middle Horizon, Wari style, 7th-11th century
Tapestry Tunic, 600-1000
Camelid-fiber (probably alpaca) weft, cotton warp; single-interlock tapestry
Overall H: 202.6cm W: 112cm
John L. Severance Fund

Even a non-quilter can enjoy the wisdom that comes from a quilter. A friend first told me about Joen Wolfrom many years ago when she mentioned this book. She has many books on color and design which can be applied to other genres. Last year she had a series of emails about color which covered contrast and value with exercises to do using paints. I still receive emails from her, which usually are about once a month. Since I mentioned the NYT article about blue, I though I’d mention Wolfrom’s email that arrived on Wednesday—violet. And since purple is my favorite color, here’s a link to that information. I love this quote:

During the reign of the Roman Empire, violet dye was extraordinarily rare. It could only be made from the crushing of thousands of the rare Mediterranean Murex sea shells. These shells were found in Tyre, Lebanon. In today’s high finance, the cost of dying the violet from these shells for one toga would cost more than $ 45,000.00

Have you ever stopped doing something for so long that you don’t know how to start again? That’s where I’ve been living lately. BUT…finally, I’m weaving again! Not sure I’m loving the piece I’m weaving, but I’m weaving. And a funny thing is happening at the same time…Ideas are floating through my head about other possible designs! Yippee!

And now for a little color. The picture above comes from a NY Times article about the color blue. All kinds of stuff about blue through history and even science. Interesting article. You can even read about the newly discovered monkey species with the blue, ahem, rear. I especially like the first paragraph about blue:

For the French Fauvist painter and color gourmand Raoul Dufy, blue was the only color with enough strength of character to remain blue “in all its tones.” Darkened red looks brown and whitened red turns pink, Dufy said, while yellow blackens with shading and fades away in the light. But blue can be brightened or dimmed, the artist said, and “it will always stay blue.”

An aspect of blue I’d never thought about before.

The above is a YouTube video of the restoration process for this tapestry. Just think, from 1974 until December, 2009 when it was finally hung in the Cloisters, this tapestry was being painstakingly restored. They even had to develop new yarn for the restoration, because yarn during the 1600s was much coarser than what’s available today. Amazing what goes into a project like this!

If the video doesn’t embed as intended, there is a link below. Very interesting to watch, about 16 minutes long. Oh, and it looks as if they’re using a Mirrix loom to weave some sections http://youtu.be/Pf3usSyHVXs