Lisa Call

Structures #79    ©2007    15.5" x 15.5"

 
The above piece will be part of The Blogger Show at the Angi Gallery in New York City, November 3-30.

I’ll have additional work at The Blogger Show at Digging Pitt Gallery in Pittsburgh in November/December.

A show full of art from bloggers of course needs a blog, which you can find here: thebloggershow.diggingpitt.com. You can check out all the participants blogs on the artists page and also check out the interesting article by Bill Gusky explaining the concept behind the blogger art show.

I am the only textile artist in the group and I’m thrilled to be included and to have a piece in a gallery in NYC for a month. A big thank you to John Morris of Digging Pitt Gallery for organizing this show.

Georgia O’Keeffe’s high school art teacher remembered O’Keeffe once declaring to the class:

I am going to live a different kind of life from the rest of you girls. After we are through school, I am going to give up everything for my art.

Quote from A Woman On Paper by Anita Pollitzer.

 
Reminds me of my posts about sacrifice last month here and here.

I spent a lot of time in my studio last month but this month has not gone as well and I’m averaging only 16 hours a week in my studio. With one week left I’m resolving to regain my focus and get back to work. I want to end the month with 100 hours for the 5 weeks. So I’ve got to put in 30-35 hours in my studio by sunday. I don’t have my kids this coming weekend (a 3 day holiday weekend here in the US) so it shouldn’t be a problem.

I’m also going to sit down and plan out the remainder of the year for business. I said I was going to do this over my five day 4th of July holiday but as usual I shrugged off the business stuff in favor of my studio. I’m notoriously bad about justifying ignoring the business and I’ve got to stop doing this.

It isn’t okay to ignore these things anymore. My first edition of my studio newsletter is at the top of my list. I had planned to email the first one last march. Obviously I didn’t fulfill that goal and I’m feeling rather lame about it. So instead look for the first edition to be mailed out by September 5th. If you haven’t signed up yet you can do so here: My Studio Newsletter Signup Page.

I’m currently reading A Woman On Paper by Anita Pollitzer. It’s a memoir about Georgia O’Keeffe, much of it in the form of letters the two wrote to each other.

My very good friend and talented artist, Julie, recommended this book when I told her I was struggling through the rather dense biography of Matisse, Matisse The Master, by Hilary Spurling. I’ll return to the Matisse book soon but this easy to read and inspiring book is a nice break.

I’m not far into the book but I could relate to the following event:

In the summer of 1915 O’Keeffe had to decide if she would return to New York and continue to take classes at the Art Student League or to take a teaching position that she was offered in South Carolina. In a letter to Anita she wrote about her decision to take the teaching position:

It will be nearer freedom to me than New York you see - I have to make a living - I don’t know that I will ever be able to do it just expressing myself as I want to - so it seems to me that the best course is the one that leaves my mind the freest.. to work as I please and at the same time make me some money.
…
If I can’t work by myself for a year with no stimulus other than what I can get from books - distant friends-and from my own fun in living - I’m not worth much…

O’Keeffe obviously did go on and make a living "just expressing" herself but I can very much relate to her thought process here and I’ve posted about it several times in the past when I talk about working as a software engineer to pay the bills.

 
One thing I think about when reading this book, and other artist biographies where much information about the artist is gleaned from private letters, is that noone writes letters anymore. Where will our history come from?

Email? Blogs? Is it the same thing?

I started this blog post over a year ago. This is as far as I got:

Someone asked a few posts back why I don’t show images of my new work. There are many reasons for this.

Given the name of my blog I suppose it’s a bit ironic I don’t like to show my newest work but I could never put into words exactly why I don’t show new work (hence this post never going very far) but it has always made me uneasy.

Today I read a newsletter by Robert Genn that captured a lot of how I feel about the subject. You can read the entire article on Robert’s website, which I highly recommend, but here are a few lines that I could really relate to:

The art of remaining mute is one of the keys to personal creative evolution. By speaking out and expressing our plans we often diffuse our need to do. It’s as if some of the energy required to produce the creative product is already used up by the words themselves.

Prior sharing leads to the defusing of motivation and can often trigger unwarranted misgivings. Even a discussion or show-and-tell that leads to positive enthusiasm and encouragement can take the wind out of your sails.

 
In addition to the idea of losing energy by sharing too much, I find that I can get derailed by outside comments on my work. I don’t always have clear ideas as to where I’m going with my work. It’s usually some vague undefined thoughts that seem to fall into place the more I work. Hearing or reading concrete ideas for where I should go shatters that fuzzy image in my head by replacing it with concrete ideas that are not my own. I become frustrated and find it hard to get back on track for my own vision. I’m not sure that makes sense but it’s the best words I can think of to explain what I’m thinking.

Over the past year I have shown some brand new work on my blog and even a few works in progress. I’m not sure why I did this - it is fun to share new work - readers do love to see it. But I need to respect my need to really work through my ideas first. While I’m not saying I will never show brand new work (or work in progress) ever again. I do think it will happen less often.

I have no doubt I will not want for things to write about and I hope this post doesn’t sound too defensive or like I’m trying to justify my plan. I think mostly I’m just talking to myself. I saw a reference to the Robert Genn post on Karen Jacob’s blog and it definitely touched on something I’ve often thought about so I decided it was finally time to write this post.

 
Many people have told me they don’t mind showing and sharing new work. How do you feel about it?

A few people have commented to me about my recent lack of posts. Summer is a wonderful time because I get a lot of artwork made but the rest of my to-dos tend to get neglected. I don’t have carpool in the morning forcing me out the door at 7am and the kids are off at friends or at camp or visiting relatives most of the summer and any semblance of a routine disappears.

It’s a nice break from the hectic craziness of daily life where I can focus my time in the studio. In July I put in 126 hours over 4 weeks. Not a bad average of 32 hours a week on top of my 40 hour a week software engineering job. Not much else happened around my house, including regular blogging.

Tomorrow the kids go back to school and life will return back to normal.

Having a morning routine tends to set the tone for the day and keeps me on track. I’m up at 5:30 for yoga, studio time from 6-6:45 then cooking a hot breakfast, making sure the kids are awake and out the door at 7:20 to be at school at 8. We’re all home around 5 and I find I do most of my blogging while the kids are milling about pretending to do homework.

I’ve been doing some thinking about my blogging and my art the last few months and I have some ideas for how I’d like to change a bit of the focus on this blog. So over the next couple of weeks as life returns I’ll see what I can do to bring that about. I want to have a bit more formal plan for when I blog and some of the topics I’d like to cover in more detail. The details of how this will work are still a bit vague but I’m sure I’ll figure it out as I go.

Happy Back to School everyone!

Structures #23    © 2003    34″ x 28″

 
This is the last of the five Structures quilts in my Grand Canyon grouping. More of my brick shapes from this period in the Grand Canyon colors I dyed. This time outlined in black for the lowest layer of the canyon, the vishnu complex made of schist, gneiss, and granite.

The last morning in the canyon I woke up very early and hiked out to an overlook on the tonto platform to watch the sunset. The weather didn’t cooperate so I didn’t get to watch the colors return to the canyon in a glorious blaze. In fact as I recall it was amazingly window and a bit unpleasant, but in my mind this quilt reminds me of that morning. I’m not really sure why.

Structures #22    © 2003    32" x 50"

 
Watching the sun set across the Grand Canyon is wonderful. As the sun moves across the canyon the colors and shadows change on the rock walls.

I could sit and watch every day as each one is different.

Structures #17    © 2003    31" x 77"

 
Another Grand Canyon inspired piece. This is the most personal of the quilts. In the background are the Grand Canyon layers and colors. In the foreground the dark and light figures - the dichotomy of good and evil. While the trip was the most amazing experience it was also a challenging personal experience with some unpleasant interactions with the men in the group. I can’t remember many details of the stress but I well remember the magic of the canyon. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alive.

I haven’t spent time hiking in the past couple of years and I think I’m really missing it. I need to resolve to get back into shape and get back in the mountains and canyons.

 
As I’m looking at these older pieces I’m reminded how much I really enjoyed making these brick wall type shapes. Each piece was cut by hand and sewn together so it’s a rather time consuming process but I love the results. I have thought recently of doing some work similar to these but every time I face an empty design wall my thin lines appear instead. Maybe in time I’ll circle back, or maybe not and I’ll just keep moving forward. Either way I don’t ever seem to run out of ideas I want to try.

Structures #16    © 2003    48" x 35"

Another piece informed by my backpacking trip to the Grand Canyon. Although the title of this piece is the usual Structures #something I always think of this quilt as simply "layers".

One of the things people that visit the Grand Canyon like to discuss and study are the types and ages of the different rock layers that make up the canyon. The hike down into the canyon is a trip through history through some very ancient stones. Each layer has distinct properties and how these layers shift throughout the canyon is interesting geology.

This website has a brief introduction into the different layers of the canyon. This page shows the layers in order. The guys on my backpacking trip spent a lot of time determining who knew the most about these rocks.

Coconino Sandstone, the Kaibab, Vishnu Schist, the Tonto Platform: these are all terms I heard over and over again.

When I came home I dyed a batch of new fabric in the colors my mind remembered the canyon and made a group of pieces to capture my experience.

The above quilt is all about these layers, and it apparently bears no resemblance to reality. I showed this completed quilt to one of the guys that went on the trip with me and he pointed out I got the layers not only in the wrong order, the wrong size but even the wrong colors. When I tried to explain that it was the concept of the layers that I was looking to capture and not the real layers he was not impressed. Abstraction is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea.

I realize yesterday’s and tonight’s post are quite a departure from my recent pondering about the direction I want to take my art career. Selling, markets, goals, etc.

I have a zillion ideas swimming around in my head. All of your comments were incredibly helpful, so thank you all. There were some specific comments and questions that I want to respond to but I need some more time to think. So I’m taking a breather and posting what I call my "grand canyon quilts" this week while I try to clarify my thoughts further.

Structures #19    © 2003    39" x 40"

 
In October 2002 I went on a week long backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon organized by the Colorado Mountain Club. I was the only female in the group with 5 or 6 men. The trip was an interesting experience. I loved the canyon and I spent quite a bit of solitary time enjoying the magic it had to offer. Sadly the guys turned out to jerks, who I did not enjoy spending time with. The good far outweighed the bad as I was able to stay away from the guys and their never ending oneupmanship. Backpackers apparently have huge egos. Who knew!

The juvenile behavior of the men has long faded but the beauty of the canyon will always be remembered. As I mentioned in a previous post - I have a collage of pictures from the grand canyon trip in my studio. I will always find them inspirational. I love the canyon walls, how the stones crack and pieces of stone fall away to reveal new layers underneath.

Structures #19 was made in response to this trip and this photograph specifically: