Posted: February 7th, 2012 | Author: admin | Filed under: art, photo | Tags: hike, LA, madrid, mountain, nature, park, photo, spain | No Comments »
At the beginning of 2012 we took a nice walk through the mountains just outside of Los Angeles.
Me and my Shadow in the Angeles National Forest
It’s always nice to get out of the city. We live near the ocean, but I haven’t been up in the mountains for a long time. It always strikes me how much California geology and flora reminds me of Spain. It felt a lot like trips we would take to Cercedilla or to the Roman Road just to the north of Madrid. Or like the trips to the country estate of the family I lived with. Dry, arid, barren landscape that is still somehow verdant and appealing. It isn’t like Northern Michigan, with it’s lush greenery and harsh snow.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the photos!
Posted: November 20th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: art, fashion | No Comments »
As you have seen from the last couple posts, I’m really excited about getting my own fabric printed through Spoonflower. Although the colors are sort of out of season, my favorite so far has to be “Ripples.” It was the best of a series of drawings I did during the rainy season in Madrid, and put into a well-sliced mirror-repeat on Spoonflower, the multiples of the drop-ripples give exactly the feeling I imagined when I drew them.
For a long time I’ve struggled with the kinds of compliments that people would give my drawings: “It’s so decorative;” “That would make great fabric;” or “You’re such a great designer.” Those all sound fine to the average ear, but because making the drawings for me wasn’t an exercise in design or decoration but a form of self-expression, they grated on my ears. They rang as false compliments. As people saying I wasn’t an Artist.
And perhaps some of those people were saying that. I think perhaps many of them were. But seeing my drawings played across fabric multiple times, their emotional power becomes stronger. They express the things that I envisioned in them singly so much more aptly when they are repeated. It’s hard to explain, but in making them into a decorative medium, printed on fabric, they have come to life as works of Art. Rather than being a limitation, their decorative properties give them more power.
It is an interesting discovery, and a lesson about fighting the nature of our work. Sometimes the struggle to make something stronger is artificial. Sometimes the way to bring out the strength in a creation is to listen to what the audience says. It is a tool to be used, not a criticism to be fended off.
