Sherri Woodard Coffey

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

Oh, no! Recently I posted a picture of Big Tex, well, just because. He recently celebrated his 60th birthday. But today, he is no more. Now, how this could have happened to Big Tex, who knows? A congressional investigation? Actually, I am writing this with tongue in cheek, but I do think it’s sad that something that has been preserved for so many years is gone. Every year there is a news piece about Big Tex going up at State Fair time. By the way, the above picture came from our local NBC affiliate.

Is balance highly overrated?

Not that I make them, but when I think about New Year’s Resolutions, I think of balance because it seems that it’s always been a problem for me. Maybe that’s just not in the cards for me. Last year when I had a deadline coming up, there were several pieces that still needed the finish work done. In my head and on my calendar, I planned to weave part of the day and do finish work part of the day. Didn’t happen! And I accepted that that kind of schedule just wasn’t for me and did all the finish work all day all the time. I still fight that all or nothing mentality, though. Maybe it’s time to stop fighting and just accept. Maybe fighting it is just exhausting to the spirit.

Enough reflecting! The warp is tied on, ready to weave. Time to go out and gather my weft yarns.

Taken with my phone, this is the large wall “mural” before going into the galleries. The actual painting, Red Sun by Arthur G. Dove, is only 20.25 x 28 inches, but I love the large mural size. It really makes a statement.

Early Thursday morning, I got to do one of every woman’s favorite things—get the annual mammogram. Afterwards I treated myself to a museum visit to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Although there are many galleries of great American art to see, I went to see the special exhibit, To See as Artists See: American Art from the Phillips Collection. I took lots of notes of pieces that I wanted to look up later. Amazingly, everything is on the Phillips Collection website! Don’t we live in an amazing world!

Having seen the Diebenkorn Ocean Park Series exhibit a year ago, it was very interesting to me to see the earlier work on the right RICHARD DIEBENKORN (1922–1993) Girl with Plant, 1960) along with the painting on the left (RICHARD DIEBENKORN (1922–1993) Ocean Park No. 38, 1971). The Ocean Park painting was done about 11 years after the girl, but you can see the forms taking shape in the earlier painting. Short bio of Diebenkorn here and the Google images page here.

There’s much more, but I need some time to absorb and do a little research. What a treat this was! Why don’t I get out more often and visit exhibits? I feel inspired!

I am so fortunate to live near a city with great art museums. The Kimbell is celebrating 40 years right now, and the Amon Carter has a new exhibit up that looks good. It’s called To See as Artists See: American Art from The Phillips Collection. Artists represented range from Rothko to Pollack to Diebenkorn and many more. I saw the Diebenkorn exhibit The Ocean Park Series at the Modern Art Museum last fall. The Diebenkorn at the Amon Carter is different and alike paintings in the Ocean Park Series. It was painted in 1960, and he began the Ocean Park Series in 1967 and continued for 25 years. If the figure of the girl was not in the above painting, you might be looking at one of the Ocean Park Series paintings. The picture below came from here.

One of the things I am going to do for myself this week—go to the museum!

A leather corset that belonged to late Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is displayed at the Frida Kahlo museum in Mexico City, Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012. A full collection from Kahlo’s wardrobe will go on public display Nov. 22 in Mexico City after being locked for nearly 50 years in her armoires and dressers: jewelry, shoes and clothes that still carry the scent of the late artist’s perfume and cigarette smoke or stains from painting. Her loose blouses covered the stiff corsets she wore for back pain. AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills.

Honestly, when I first read the above, I wondered about Frida, but then I read about back pain, and could only imagine how she must have suffered with her pain while painting for long periods. Here’s a little more and another picture of her clothing from ArtDaily. Which brings to mind another question: Would you want your clothing in a museum exhibit?