Archive for April, 2010

What a gorgeous and inspiring find!

April 23, 2010

I think this is going to fuel my imagination for a while!

While at my local library today I glanced over at a display of books  with an Earth Day theme. The cover of this book grabbed my attention immediately.

The Bizarre and Incredible World of Plants

The colors, the textures, the organic shapes and the topic! I’ve been sitting out in the sun and pouring over it.

This large book, The Bizarre and Incredible World of Plants was created by a collaboration between two scientists,  Wolfgang Stuppy and Madeline Harley AND a brilliant visual artist, Rob Kessler. Kessler worked with mostly electron microscopic images and enhanced them with color (sometimes based on scientific evidence and sometimes not). Here are a few more images of pollen grains by Kessler:

pollen grain 1

pollen grain 2

The photos in here are brimming with rich, complex, intricate patterns and textures. I can’t wait to sketch some to be able to begin to know those shapes and lines enough to play with them in my art.  Then that imagery becomes part of the visual vocabulary I draw from (literally) when creating. At least, I think that’s how it works!

Posted in Inspiration, Motivation, Process | 2 Comments »

Fundamental Change IV- part 1

April 19, 2010

OK- I’m back from St. Louis and seeing the Fiber Twentyten show (more on that later).  Ideas for my new piece have been percolating!

After painting a large piece of  kona cotton fabric with acrylic and Setacolor for the background I laid it out on plastic sheeting to let it dry on my porch. I’ve discovered in the past that the wrinkles in the plastic cause the paint or dye to migrate along the ridges and create areas of deeper color. This results in lovely unexpected patterns on the surface of the fabric. Here is a very zoomed in close up of the shapes formed on the piece of kona.

close up stitching

I spent yesterday loosely stitching around the serendipitous shapes to create the backdrop for what will come later. Of course it all looks so biological to me!

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Fundamental Change continues

April 6, 2010

I made a piece in 2004 and named it Fundamental Change. I was trying to imagine the very point and moment of shift at a cellular level. Here’s a detail view of it:

Fundamental Change I-detail

Fundamental Change I-detail

Later that year came Fundamental Change II. Different composition but to me still exploring the same thing:

Fundamental-Change-II

Fundamental-Change-II

In 2006, during chemotherapy treatment (lots of fundamental change that year!), I created Fundamental Change III:

Fundamental Change III

Fundamental Change III

I guess I’m not finished with this notion because the new piece just beginning to come into being on my design wall will be Fundamental Change IV. It was clear when I was working on the sketches that it’s turning into a playful illustration of a moment of change…

Posted in Artwork, Motivation, Process | Leave a Comment »

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