Allida Warn

Photo Booths

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 07:07:57 +0000

Today was extremely busy. A friend of mine in our building has a daughter who is about 11. She had an art show and a film festival today with photos and films by her on display in both places. It sounded like a fun thing to do, so I went along for the ride.

The school, and the art centers were really interesting and bring to bear on a running argument that I have with my SO, who claims that there [...]

Photography

admin — Sat, 19 May 2012 06:58:19 +0000

Today was all about photography.

It started because the photos I took to document some work of mine were illegible, so they needed new photos.

The results were poetic, though not much more legible.

Then I decided to pull out my real camera. I downloaded some Canon Hacking software to make it do time lapse. I’ve wanted to do that for awhile, but my camera is now 5 years old, so the warranty is already expired.

Although I have used my new hacks, the [...]

Tree Corsets

admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 02:49:50 +0000

As I mentioned yesterday, doing something every day is important. Let’s see if I can write something here every day! With an image of some kind!!!

I’ve always loved trees with the bark peeling off. In Michigan, those are birches. In Spain they are mostly plane trees (plantians, which are like a beech tree). In southern California they seem to be nearly exclusively eucalyptus trees. A variety of colors and shapes that my mid-Western mind couldn’t imagine until I moved here.

The [...]

Every Day

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:29:58 +0000

Doing something every day is important, even if it’s a small thing. This is a lesson that seems like common sense, but it is one that is hard to maintain. Although I know it, it is hard to just do.

My housemate has a dog. She needs to go out about the same times every day. So, many mornings I take her. It gets the day going, and keeps me balanced to have a daily task. We walk about a mile, [...]

Folding For Effects

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:39:02 +0000

One winter, while living in Chicago, with my soul yearning for the frozen pond in my not-so-urban backyard, surrounded by ducks, I decided to make some prints about the feeling of separation from nature in urban life.

The challenge began when I walked out the door looking for something “natural” to take with me to the studio so I could do an observed drawing. The only thing I found in the cold city winter was a fir branch from a planter [...]

Watts Towers

admin — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:37:15 +0000

To celebrate my birthday, although not on the day, we went to see the Watts Towers.

Having seen photos of them, there was an image in my mind of what they were and what they represent. They always seemed similar to the Sagrada Familia or other Gaudí work. And they are, but there is something even livelier about them. Maybe because they are so compact, yet so tall.

The Watts Towers are so open and soaring, like a rigid spider-web or [...]

Art on Fabric

admin — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:29:22 +0000

Recently, I’ve begun some new projects. These images are of a piece done for one of the new projects. The fabric has been silk-screened, semi-regularly with several layers of the same image– a few circles done in India ink on a piece of plexiglass and then exposed to the screen.

It gives the effect, despite minor irregularities, of being a repeat pattern, but it isn’t really registered. The edges of the screen against the previous layers or the edge of the [...]

More Hyperbolic Space

admin — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:13:06 +0000

This is the math behind my latest knitting.

The schematics make it easier to understand what’s going on in the pieces I’ve been building, for those who had trouble picturing it. Also in the middle there’s a schematic that shows how hyperbolic planes relate to the Julia Set, which makes my understanding of the whole thing slightly more complete. Not to say I’m a mathematician, since I’m not, but seeing the “Black and White” version concretizes the fluffy one in [...]

Fractal Collars

admin — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 04:46:44 +0000

Last weekend, I had an extraordinary experience. At the College Arts Association Conference, I met several people through my Fractal Necklaces. That’s not the extraordinary part though.

As many of you who actually know me in person know, I’ve long been obsessed with pattern and structure in Fiber, be it beads, crochet, or paper. Before I moved to Spain in 2005, my friend Rowena taught me to knit. And, like any good Fiber Artist who is obsessed with structure, I wanted [...]

Angeles National Forest

admin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:09:13 +0000

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 [...]