Tuesday, April 24, 2012

WHEN NATURE AND DESIGN EMBRACE

When nature and design embrace,
beauty is created.
Domingo Totora's work is extraordinary
and his website is pure poetry.

From the amazing photographs...


to the beautiful location .....

the designer's philosophy...

....the studio
and of course the work itself.

Just poetry!


Collaborating with designers, artisans and communities,
Domingos Totora designs breathtakingly beautiful objects and sculpture from recycled cardboard pulp.

CARDBOARD PULP!


It is a labor intensive process
whereby cardboard is torn into small pieces
and then turned into pulp.
The pulp is used to mold anything from rocks...

to objet d'art ....

.... vessels


... to furniture.


Domingos Totora's studio and workshops are "nestled between the deep blue of open sky and the emerald green mountains" where "the natural light is tangible, giving form to surfaces of objects and sculpture. Nature and work embrace and interact with each other".


I could quite easily post every photo from the website,
they are THAT inspiring,
but you need to get over there to see for yourself.
You won't be disappointed!

Saturday, April 21, 2012

PHOTOGRAPHS THAT SING


"Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination." - Quote from The Moon and Sixpence by W.S. Maugham

For some reason Aaron Siskind's photographs intrigue me. 


My first glimpse of Siskind's photography was an image from his Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation series (see photo above).

"Siskind froze the motion of athletes by using extremely fast shutter speeds that left crisp outlines. He captured the figure at moments that emphasized their abstract shape, pinning their dark form against a cloudy-bright sky so as to put the abstract-ness of their shapes into higher relief" - Kara Fiedorek


The Levitation series was impressive but it was only when I discovered his more abstracted images that my heart began dancing to the melody and I set out to find out more about this amazing photographer. Read a quick biography here.

Many of his photographs reminded me of Fanz Kline's paintings and upon further investigation I discovered the Homage to Franz Kline series. No surprise that Siskind and Kline were friends!


"Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever. It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything". Aaron Siskind



Thursday, April 12, 2012

WEAVE, WEAVING, WOVEN


I found a beautiful poem by Adrienne Rich which transported me to a cosy spot beside the Aga in a farm kitchen long ago. I picture a woman sitting with head bowed over her handwork. Perhaps she is weaving or crocheting, sewing, sketching, collaging .... or even carving.

"..... Vision begins to happen in such a life
as if a woman quietly walked away
from the argument and jargen in a room
and sitting down in the kitchen,
began turning in her lap
bits of yarn, calico and velvet scraps
laying them out absently on the scrubbed boards
in the lamplight, with small rainbow-colored shells
sent in cotton-wool from somewhere far away,
and skeins of milkweed from the nearest meadow -
original domestic silk, the finest findings -
and the dark petal of petunia,
amid the dry dark brown lace of seaweed;
not forgotten either, the shed silver
whisker of the cat,
the spiral of paper-wasp-nest curling
beside the finch's yellow feather.
Such a composition has nothing to do with eternity,
the striving for greatness, brilliance -
only with the musing of the mind
one with her body, experienced fingers quietly pushing
dark against bright, silk against roughness,
pulling the tenets of a life together
with no mere will to mastery,
only care for the many-lived, unending
forms in which she finds herself ..... "

- Adrienne Rich, Transcendal Etude




When fiber artist and bush sculptor, Janine McAullay Bott first began weaving she recalls that "Something came over me. I'd never weaved an object in my life, yet it felt like I'd been doing it forever. That feeling went from my heart right through to the tips of my fingers. I haven't been able to stop since."

"I like to call a weave a thought I had. Sometimes I'd just sit there and think about my grandfather or my mother and my hands would keep going - like they had a mind of their own" - Jane McAullay Bott


If you are a basket maker you have probably visited Tim Johnson's studio photo blog, here. Not only are his baskets wonderful but his photography is outstanding too.




Woven bottles by Mary Giles


Gurage basket, Ethiopia

If you would like to see more images, visit my WEAVE board at Pinterest, here.

See video, Gapuwiyak's Women With Clever Hands, here.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

IN LIMBO AGAIN


Running through my head is a quote by Stephen DeStaebler.
"Artists don't get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working"

Evidently the pain of not working is not severe enough, otherwise I would be carving right now.

Fortunately I don't have to rely on my art to eat but I do have several commissions pending and it's embarrassing that I have gone over the deadline by months.

I go through this every summer but we are now experiencing the most glorious honey days of autumn. Autumn is my most creative time of the year. It propels me through the rest of the year. I know I'm not alone when it comes to artist block but I still feel disappointed that I'm letting these precious days trickle away. Creating art makes me feel alive..... and yet here I am, in the doldrums .... waiting for who knows what.