{"id":3915,"date":"2017-06-22T09:48:11","date_gmt":"2017-06-22T14:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=3915"},"modified":"2017-06-22T09:48:11","modified_gmt":"2017-06-22T14:48:11","slug":"what-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=3915","title":{"rendered":"What On Earth …"},"content":{"rendered":"

Housekeeping on the dashboard of this blog, including deleting a few rubbish comments from spammers and grappling with editing pages and gallery images for the first time in a while, I found several titles of uncompleted post drafts, including the above heading with absolutely nothing written next to it \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0 Whatever was on my mind\u00a0a few weeks ago, I was interrupted and didn’t resume it. \u00a0Never mind, it seems apt for today’s post.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I composed an artist statement on the work “Land Marks”<\/em> I’m providing for the invitational part of Judith Trager’s “75 Exhibition” in Boulder this coming August.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/h5>\n
“Land Marks” 2016, detail<\/h5>\n

The statement for this piece reads: “Erosional forces acting on the Earth\u2019s surface produce distinctive shapes and textural patterns in every landscape, changes which have come to mean a metaphor for the physical changes we all experience as we progress through Life. Additionally, on every continent are thousands of sites featuring ancient hand drawn, painted and chipped markings of patterns and symbols on rocks, cave walls and even out on vast plains. \u00a0Styles vary and we do not always understand their symbolism; but we always recognize them as man-made. \u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Recently I have found myself faced with an irresistible challenge to use unconventional materials in a quilt-like way. In this work, Mylar coated nylon shapes were covered with hand-drawn patterns and machine sewn onto mock-patent leather vinyl fused to a cotton fabric backing, thus technically fulfilling the function of \u2018quilting\u2019. The fusing process produced unexpected wrinkling, which I feel is a plus, as such things can sometimes be. “<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

There’s no doubt that writing a statement about a particular work pins you down mentally, forcing you to think and even re-assess how a particular piece fits into your overall body of work. \u00a0People who know me well have heard my opinion that the best artist statement about a work is an apt single- or two-word title<\/span>.<\/em><\/span> \u00a0As I make each piece, I keep a list of contenders \u00a0as they come to mind. \u00a0I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve settled on that lazy cop out, “Untitled’.<\/p>\n

Just now I had the notion that I could work around the other way – that is, draw up a list of words such as these key buzzwords frequently found in statements and titles – journey, markings, stitch, cloth, inspiration, texture, pattern, patience, media, environment, media, assemblage, arrangement, response, hand-dyed, textile, embellishment, eco print, designer, pure, mixed – select one, and proceed from there. \u00a0I could easily find many more, and\u00a0I suspect the choice would influence the outcome of the design and the craftsmanship. \u00a0Come to think of it, I could just randomly select a word from any dictionary and go from there …<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Housekeeping on the dashboard of this blog, including deleting a few rubbish comments from spammers and grappling with editing pages and gallery images for the first time in a while, I found several titles of uncompleted post drafts, including the above heading with absolutely nothing written next to it \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0 Whatever was on my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6uxpF-119","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3915"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3995,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3915\/revisions\/3995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}