Sand, Ruins & Kintsugi

I approached this sand paining from a different perspective. Rather than thinking of the depicted space as a bird's eye view pattern, I focused on topography as a tactile experience. I asked myself what would the landscape feel like if I could run my hands across it. Thinking of its surface as a skin or cloth over an underlying structure, I had to consider the experience of each curve and form individually. As I did this, each area took on unique characteristics that resulted in a less unified but more dynamic composition. 

When creating the ruins for this work, I thought about the practice of Kintsugi. Gold is used to repair broken pottery creating an unpredictable, decorative pattern. The philosophy behind this practice contends that when an object is damaged and repaired; it is not thought of as a destructive process but rather an important part of the object's history. So instead of creating a series of mound structures and building around them, I thought of the ruins as a rolling plain of fractured parts that required a network of seams to mend the landscape back together in a different way.

Porcelain Artifacts

I've built up a nice collection of porcelain "relics" for my sand work. A few weeks back, I posted about the first three forms. This week, I assembled all of them together to get a sense of what the overall pattern will look like when the piece is complete. The fact that so far the surface of the forms is much more smooth than the initial prototypes is encouraging. I also really like they way they look together, simultaneously ornamental and organic. I'm looking forward to incorporating sand once the final firing is complete.

Painting More Landscapes

I've finished the first piece in the series of object/painting hybrids I've been posting about. Although happy with the result, there are still a lot of things I want to try. In previous weeks, I was concerned about how these pieces connect with my other work. The subject matter, the creek/stream motif, is a reoccurring theme in my paintings and sand work this semester. In these paintings, I've incorporated colors culled from popular culture, toys and memories from my childhood. Both the paintings and sand work also emphasize making, process, repetition and attention to surface texture. 

In reading *Notes on Camp by Susan Sontag, I discovered an affinity between my work and her description of Camp art. I was particularly interested in her observation of Camp having the tendency towards "decorative art, [...] texture, sensuous surface and style at the expense of content" (278). Although I would argue that my work is not quite free of content, I would agree that form outranks content. Sontag goes on to say that, "Camp introduces a new standard: artifice as an ideal, theatricality" (280). This statement perfectly encapsulates my goal of presenting nature as artifice. 

I really like the interplay of light and shadow on the first painting. In fact, I plan to use one of the new objects to further explore monochromatic painting. The bead work on the 2nd painting is moving very slowly but so far I'm happy with its development. I've been building up layers of color on the lollipop trees painting and will eventually pour layers of glaze on top of it. I have two new objects to gesso today and one new object ready for papier-mache. The next step in this series will be to build objects that will be organic in form and not limited to the square format that I've been working with.

*Sontag, Susan. “Notes on ‘Camp.’” Against Interpretation and Other Essays. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966. 274–292. Print.

Test Prints

Print on fabric

I've been mulling over some test prints of the sand photographs. I have prints on 3 different types of paper and 1 type of fabric.  I had very high hopes for the fabric, but because it is sheer, a lot of the photo information was lost making the image looks washed out. My printer usually offers a more opaque cotton option, but it is on back order at the moment. I might revisit that later. 

The first paper print is on a bright, white etching paper that has a heavy body and prominent tooth. I like the paper very much but I'm afraid that its texture competes with the image a bit too much. The second print is on a bright white fine art paper that is more smooth, probably too smooth for my taste. It's nice but doesn't really add much to the image. The final print is on a bamboo derived paper that has just the right texture and a warmer color. The paper's hue works wonderfully with the colors in the image. It's tooth also seems to enhance the texture of the print. I'm not sure that I have completely nailed the printing method but I'm off to a good start. Now I have to think about scale for my first set of 6, full size prints on the bamboo paper.

Test print on bamboo paper

Detail of test print on bamboo paper

Test print on fine art paper

Detail of test print on fine art paper

Test print on etching paper

Detail of test print on etching paper

Painting Landscapes

Leaving the topography of the form white draws attention to the interplay between light and shadow. I think shifting the direction of the texture might create some interesting, unexpected patterns.

So a month ago I was really excited about these object/painting hybrids. A couple of weeks past and I finished the first set of forms and found myself ready to start painting. Then I ran into a problem. I realized that although I brainstormed and sketched the forms, I did not have a clear idea of what the finished, painted work would look like. I knew I wanted to do something with surface texture or pattern, but I wasn't exactly sure what. I was very happy with the forms themselves but once I started working on the underpaintings, not so much anymore.

I think I reached a point where I was overthinking these pieces. Since the concept behind them is rooted in childhood, I figured that I should try to recover a sense of play. I've resolved to work intuitively, which is something I normally reserve for my sculptural work. I immediately started building some new forms so I can try a different approach on each of them, working my way through the problem.

Started building some new forms to play with.

Finished the 3rd form and ready to paint.

Covering the first form with beads.

I like how the bead's iridescence gives the illusion of cloth.

Results from using Rice Paste Resist

I recently finished the last of three cotton panels I made to explore different types of resist for cool water batik. You can check out the original post here. The design on the final panel was made with rice paste resist. I found this process takes longer and is much more labor intensive. To create the resist, I boiled 1 cup of rice in 2 cups of water for 30 minutes adding more water as it was absorbed. When the rice reached a thick, starchy consistency, I used a blender to pulse it into a paste. This paste was too thick to apply with a brush, so I used my fingers to press it into the fabric. Since I was concerned about the paste breaking down as I rubbed coffee into the fabric, I reinforced larger areas with more rice. The resist was very thick and sticky and took a couple of days to dry completely. To my delight, the resist held up much better to the coffee application than I expected. I let it rest for overnight instead of the day and a half that I waited for the original 2 panels. 

The next afternoon I rinsed out the resist and ran into some issues. Either because of the shorter set time for the coffee or because I had to use warmer water to rinse out the (super wash-resistant) rice starch, the color of the coffee barely registers in some areas. Depending on how the light hits the panel, at times you can't even see the pattern at all. These presents some new problems. Out of the three types of resist; I think that rice has the most potential formally and content wise. It creates a line that is softer than the wax resist but more definitive than glue gel. I have to figure out how to apply the coffee so that the stain remains as I remove the resist. I'm currently working on a pattern that includes an encoded map of a particular path I walk every Tuesday and Thursday. I planned for this work to be much larger than the 12" x 36" panels. However, since I can foresee a lot of experimentation necessary to nail down the process for this work, I'm going to divide this pattern into smaller parts that will be assembled together later so that I can work faster.

The pattern on the top portion of the panel is barely discernible.

The color on the bottom portion of the pattern is more successful, though I'm not exactly sure why.

The Decisive Moment

I'm very excited about developments with the sand paintings. I just ordered some test prints today on paper and textile. I've also been considering how to display the images once I decide which material to use. I believe the new method of matching the landscape and ruins into diptychs drawing connections between the idealized memory of a landscape and its inevitable destruction and transformation is promising. I also have some ideas concerning how to display sand installations. Originally, I wanted to build or repurpose a table. Now, I'm planning to build a wall-mounted or hanging shelf out of plexi so that the sand can be viewed from every possible angle. I would like to know if a clear surface underneath will help to eliminate boundaries between the viewer and the work encouraging more intimate interaction.