new work…

Since I finished the massive documentation project I decided it was time to re-immerse in some art making.  And so these are two new pieces  Currents #19  and  Currents #20.  I continue to be fascinated with the curved line and now have entered the twenties with this series.  This same curved line has also worked itself into two other series running concurrently Keeping Up Appearances  and Upheaval.

The curved line has really come to represent my work. And it happened only when I got out of my own way and noticed that any doodle I made always had a curved line within it.

More than a decade ago when I began this work I thought those who worked in a series were boring,  lacked imagination, and had only one idea which they were going to make until they died!   As I became more artistically astute I became aware of identity and cohesion when making art. As I entered more shows and processed entries for others I began to see a pattern of  artists whose work all identifies as their own.

In January I had the honor of  being a juror for an art quilt exhibit and again it came through so loud and clear about having one’s voice; making work that looks like it came from the same hand.

It has been a lifelong pattern for me that anything that peeves me generally ends up being something from which I am to learn. Lesson learned: I plan to continue to design more curved line work as it inspires me. It is a metaphor for the lifeline, always in flux, always in movement, always changing.

The accent piece in Currents #20 was a well worn dishtowel, found in my father’s kitchen, with the word ARTICHOKE printed underneath what else? an artichoke!  I dyed, screen-printed and inserted with some incredible soy wax batik. No doubt that artichoke towel was one of a series someone designed and sold to a kitchen store in years gone by. There’s that lifeline again…