On one of the mornings I was free to do my own thing in San Miguel de Allende, I wandered around to El Nigromante cultural centre, which includes an art school, where in addition to various classes in progress, I found several exhibitions, including a lovely little one, in every sense, titled “Petit Four” , set up in just one medium sized room.   As we all know, petits fours are exquisite little bite sized sweet cakes served with coffee;  something similar but often less exquisite is available here in uruguay – masas finas come in many shapes and degrees of decoration.  I googled the artist, Pat Lasch, found she was on Facebook, and have had some correspondence with her, in which she was very forthcoming about her art.   As a young child she began helping her pastrychef father ice cakes when she was about 8 or 9  and did this with him for some years.  Later in life they collaborated in a book together with his recipes and her artworks – this time  cake sculptures rather than actual cakes.  I hope to see this book some time, as from what I saw of this artist’s work, it will be enchanting, too.  It wasn’t very surprising to hear from her that back in the ’70’s she too worked in fabric and thread – I haven’t seen any images of that work, yet anyway.

Look at the photos below.  These are not edible – they are miniature sculptures of acrylic and wood.   Each piece on the plate for example is within 2″x2″x2″.    From a technical point of view, just as the pastrychef needs to get the ingredients just right so that icing for example sits correctly at just the right consistency and holds its shape when moulded, so too I think a huge amount of experimentation must have taken place over time to get the ‘fondant’ looking just right, and the lovely glaze on some of the pieces is another technique altogether.    And then, the artful arrangement of these pieces, some on a large elegant platter with lace doiley, others individually presented in miniature cake boxes arranged on a lovely lace tablecloth.  It was just beautiful.

But art is not mere technical expertise; there needs to be some rationale that connects the artist to the viewer via the work on show.   On the walls were two quotations important to Pat and used by the curator to help set the mood, create context for this work.  Pat’s father told her “If you make a mistake, put a rose on it”.  (A famous embroiderer teacher once told a class I was in, not to unpick anything but to just sew more stitches over the top… interesting)  The other quotation “There are three branches of the fine arts: painting, sculpture and pastry making, of which architecture is a branch”   Pierre Simon Fournier, 1712-1768 (a time in which wit was a prized social/intellectual faculty)

Just as Iwas getting my mind into gear to write this post, somewhere I came across a link to another artist, Michael Paul Smith a designer and photographer who uses his miniature car collection and his occupational skills in modelling for designers and architects to pursue miniature art via photography; and in addition to this link there are others with more examples of very realistic looking photos featuring cars – but his hand made sets are totally to scale and not at all real – just ‘atmosphere’ of the place in which he grew up. 

Additionally this same week, on a quilters’ list there was a call for miniature fibre works that must be less than 30cm, or something pretty small for fabric and fibre – anyway, again miniaturisation came up, and it all set me thinking about why people work this way, and how it appeals to the viewer, well to some of us anyway.  As Michael Paul Smith commented “What started out as an exercise in model building and photography, ended up as a dream-like reconstruction of the town I grew up in. It’s not an exact recreation, but it does capture the mood of my memories.”   and this would have to be true for Pat Lasch, too.  I haven’t taken to the world of the miniature to the point of wanting to work there, but it is very interesting to see good examples.  People often say to me when they see my work,  “I don’t know how you have the patience to do that”.  I  just say ” Well, I enjoy doing it”  and smile.   I don’t think I can expect such a person to understand that it’s not a matter of patience alone -the artist must have persistence too, but far more important, there must be passion for what you are doing.  In these cases, two people are looking back and exploring something that has had profound influence on them, and presenting/exploring that in miniature form.  I am really glad I wandered into the fine arts centre that day.

I was fortunate to spend 6 days in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico the week before last (you didn’t know I was gone, did you?) and while our DD was involved in her daily 4 hour botanic drawing class, I either walked in the town itself or walked in the wonderful botanic garden, Charco del Ingenio.  Sited on ridges above this historic, World Heritage listed town, the focus is entirely on indigenous mexican plants, featuring cactii, agaves and succulents. Trees there were mostly the acacia family – all low rainfall area plants.  I commented as we drove into the town from the airport how dry it was and how it clearly had not rained for a very long time,  and would you believe, that night it rained…

the cross in the background to this pic is very symbolic according to the english half of the didactic panel/plaque nearby:

these rolled dried leaves attached to the underlying mesh (refer to the plaque above) I thought would make a gentle surface for a dead body – caring somehow – I didn’t test my theory as I didn’t want to look too nosey and pokey as an obvious tourista gringa.

Each time I was in the garden there were groups of school children there for an outdoor lesson or field trip.  Since its foundation in 1991, the garden has become widely known for its conservation and preservation of these specias of plants found all over Mexico, some of them iconic images of the country.  Some are very rare and difficult to cultivate, but certain people on the staff here have the skills and special knowledge, several of them are consulted by botanists from everywhere, several have travelled widely to lecture and teach and the city is,  rightly, very proud of this place.  The small low building behind the plaza is the lecture hall/classroom where DD’s class was held.  At the other end of the garden was a conservatory housing some special cactii, and an agaves garden planted out with a large variety of these.  And everywhere along the natural gravelled pathways were low bench seats for visitors to sit and gaze out over the partk with the wetlands at the bottom, watch birds, take photos, rest, or whatever. In one or two places I came across volunteers weeding among planted beds.  Following are some of the fav. photos from the time I spent there:

In future posts I will show a few other pics of the town and things I observed there as we did mother and daughter tourist things in the afternoons and evenings.

this second 'sign' was set in loose sand way up the beach at the foot of a dune.

On the morning after the first lot of rather high tides, this, second one, was still high ad dry but had been approached by water, as far up the beach as it was.

And this is roughly the spot where I think the red-based marker is buried after the incredibly wild weather.

A series of pics showing how the profile of the beach has changed.  The two top pics are of a couple of scutlptures,  ‘markers’ or ‘offerings’, ?signs perhaps, of a kind I hadn’t seen before.   Both were in a cement base, the lower one still in the bucket it was set in.  I thought I’d keep an eye on how long they lasted – not knowing things would change so fast.  The next day the one set at the water’s edge was still there, but in the tidal movements since had settled down into the sand a bit.  The top one was untouched, and I took a pic to show how they were located.  I wondered idly whether the angle between the and on out into the river might mean anything.  The first time I saw them some people were fishing nearby, and I wondered if they might have been some kind of marker for them.  Who knows, but they were left there.  Now that the beach profile is so totally different I imagine they are still there, but now lurking under the sand, and will re-appear some time.   I hope someone doesn’t step on one of those rusty iron arms of one of the sculptures – the spines at the bases of them look pretty lethal … but there’s no sign at present.  Thing is now I don’t know how far up or down the beach I should walk!  and am looking ahead carefully.

If the pictures line up oddly on this page, sorry, I’m nost sure why – but enjoy them anyway ;-p

A few days ago we had some wild and woolly weather – very strong winds pushing the high tides further up the beach than usual – right at the time I like to hit the beach early in the morning- top photo.   A couple of days later, the same place looked quite different, and regular readers who’ve been following my beach photos will recognise a place from where I have taken previous pics – you can scroll back through late january and february to see some.    One morning I was there right at high tide, and the beach was almost impassable in places – I found myself trekking through the marram grass at the foot of sand ‘cliffs’ where it hung by ezxposed roots. suspended and swaying in the wind following erosion of its supporting dune.

This sand 'cliff' was build by wind and wave action, and however long ago that was this plastic was captured - soon to be released and sent on it's way as the continual process launches some more onslaughts to this part.

Following are a few other pics of my interest in the ongoing the effects of erosion and deposition so wonderfully presented every day in the profiles and textures on the local beach. 

This small dune was deposited probably by wind that caught this little heap of rubbish, which is once again exposed to the elements and about to be moved on - moving through the environment, sometimes stopping, then starting again some time later... who knows where it will end up - and because it is made of largely non-bidegradable material, it has a long way to go and all the time in the world to get there.

And finally, humourous but pretty awful, too in that it is dangerous: – and at the time of writing, still perched precariously at the top of the beach.  This hut/unit had been supported on timber beams but was seriously undermined in the bad weather and personally, I now give it a wide berth as it could topple any time.  But the humour comes on the awning of the nearby kiosk showing above it, in english remarkably – “Leave an Impression’  !!! 

Today a textile/fiber artist asked a bunch of the rest of us on a list if anyone had suggestions or knowledge of how to modify potato crisp packages for use in textile projects, and although I replied with a light touch of irony and several actual sugestions, it led me to thinking about why people choose particular materials to work with, and I spent a little time thinking about the non-traditional materials I have worked with in the past few years – and I mean, why leather?  (because I developed a symbolic meaning for it) and why lame/glitter ? (aside from genetic attraction to anything glittery!  – to me something gold and glittery indicates preciousness or intrinsic value)

This request was posted a couple of  hours ago, but already there are several references to websites or articles on using these packets in craft projects, ranging from folding and sewing the folded units to attach to another surface, or cutting into long fine strips and making bracelets ….and I am sure there will be more as the  day continues.    So how to use them and how to shrink and otherwise modify them is acessible knowledge out there when you GTS.   And I presume one would thoroughly wash them to remove all traces of oil salt and potato odour that would attract bugs to any natural fibres in the work.

But to me the most important questions are on these lines:  In using modifed crisp packets, would an artist be saying something about the waste of resources for such packages and the rubbish we leave around?   Or does the choice of material not necessarily say anything at all about it’s actual original purpose. ie once it’s done containing crisps, so it just becomes an empty container made of a certain material?  And does/can how you use a material take it beyond a ‘craft project’ necessarily?   I have been thinking a lot about what we discard – the recycling rubbish scheme here doesn’t work well for various reasons; and just lately foreign tourists have written to local media about how certain places or experiences here have been spoiled by the poor rubbish disposal habits of uruguayans… and I have taken quite a few pics ( see recent blog posts) which either accidentally or deliberately feature rubbish, especially the enduring plastic kind.

The above pic is of a bunch of predomantly plastic rubbish  exhumed by wave action recently on a dune of our local beach.  More pics elsewhere close by on this blog page.  I don’t know the archival qualities of potato crisp packets, but I feel they must be pretty durable.  I am wondering though if I should focus entirely on using more ‘waste’  material combining it with fabrc and stitch, or even ditch the new fabrics new fibres thing altogether?  Nah… or at least, I’m not in the right frame of mind for that just yet.  But there is food for thought, and while considering all this I remembered the fabulous scuptural textile-like work of the Nigerian artist El Anatsui – check out the fabulous, massive curtains of linked bottle tops…. but it’s not just about bottle tops.    In Quilt National in 1997  was a terrific quilt by West Australian artist  Janie Matthews, entitled “American Icon” it was a large US flag design made of thousands? of applied 1″ squares cut from Pepsi  and CocaCola cans, each predominantly red blue and white square placed to give the design its form.   In this work, the symbolism and irony and sybolism with in this  approx. 1.5 in length work were clever and interesting – it wasn’t just about the design of the US flag, nor was it just about the two giant soft drink companies.  Those of you near your QN catalogues can look it up….but I don’t seem to be able to find a pic of it anywhere online.