Blog

by Mary Schoeser

What has 567 pages, over 1,000 images, weighs over 7 pounds, and has enough inspiration to keep your artistic juices flowing for a very long time? Mary Schoeser’s latest book: Textiles The Art of Mankind.

The book features work from around the world, with both historical pieces and contemporary ones.  It is an overwhelming tome of text and visuals that I will periodically be dipping in and out of for a long time to fully take it in.

One of my quilts, Squared Illusions 6, is included (bottom right above). I do wish that the important fact that the piece is primarily made from digitally-printed pigmented ink on fabric was included in the description. Even so, I am incredibly thrilled and honored to have work in this book.

Books published by Thames & Hudson are often beautifully displayed at museums around the world, and for good reason. They are gorgeous to look at, informative to read, and provide massive amounts of inspiration. This book is no exception. While expensive, at $95 retail, Amazon sells it for nearly $30 less. And, since the book is over $25, you can get free ground shipping with it. If you love textiles, consider treating yourself to this beauty.

Artist Leo Villareal created “The Bay Lights,” a public art light sculpture across the San Francisco Bay Bridge, which will shine for two years starting March 5, 2013. The artwork is made up of some 25,000 energy-efficient LEDs, mounted on vertical cables 30 feet apart. The LEDs are controlled individually by computer, with the light turning on or off some 60 times a second via a 1.8 mile fiber-optic cable, to create a variety of patterns that flow into one another. He states, “I’m interpreting all the kinetic activity around the bridge: the traffic, the motion of water, the sky — it’s such a rich environment to draw upon.” The artist told a reporter at Mashable that the computers controlling this are a “bunch of $500 Mac minis mounted inside the bridge” and that those Macs are running Windows via Apple’s Bootcamp. Wow!

I took this shot one afternoon, on route to the train station. From it, I created a bunch of variations using several different iPad/iPhone apps. (Yes, I know I’m missing a “w” from my signature brush!)

I’m thrilled that my Artifications quilt is on the cover of the latest issue of The Professional Quilter magazine. The magazine is the quarterly publication of The International Association of Professional Quilters. I’ve been writing the technology forum column for the magazine for over 15 years (it’s hard for me to believe it’s been that long).  If you’re not a member, check it out.  It’s not just for quilt makers, but mixed media artists, too.  I’m also happy to share that I’m working on an eBook compilation of columns, all updated where needed, and selling it my website at some point in 2013.  Let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll keep you posted.

Here is the cutie, the 95 lb Bud-Z that can knock me on my butt in a single move (and he’s done it several times).  We got him after after our beloved Buddy died.  Buddy was a Rottie, Chow, Shepard, German Short Hair Pointer mix with a beautiful disposition.  After he died (two years ago, March 3rd, I wrote a post about him then), Rich tried to find a similar looking dog.  He did, in West Virginia (found him on PetFinder.com). Well, he may look the same, but his temperament is truly different. To say the least, the first year he was very difficult to the point we hired a trainer to help us with him.  Here’s the post I wrote after Buddy died. You can see how similar they looked, oh but how different they are!

As a present for Rich, I had Bud-Z’s DNA analyzed, and the results are in.  We thought he was Chow, Rottie, and Shepard, and then guessed other things.  Our vet though Ridgeback and Shepard, another vet thought Golden Lab.  Rich was sure Bullmastiff, and I feared Pit Bull.  But, nope!

The results are in … Bud-Z is a Chow-Chow mix and a Whippet Mix!!  Whippet????  We thought, no way!  However, Bud-z is incredibly fast off the line.  The other breeds in the mix, which all add up to the special dog that is Bud-Z are:
Catahoula Leopard Dog at 45.54%
Plott Hound at 21.07%
Cardigan Welsh Corgi at 10.16%
Newfoundland at 7.72%
Shih Tzu at 3.51%

As I mentioned in the post that follow this, I spent Saturday at The Center for Book Arts on W. 27th in NYC. The non-profit Center is open to the public, and I totally enjoyed both my class and wondering through the exhibits and other areas. If you’re in the area, I encourage you to visit. It’s located on the 3rd floor and even though I had the address, initially walked right past the place, as there was construction scaffolding in the area which blocked any signage that I might have otherwise seen.

The above left shows an exhibit by Tomie Arai called Tales from Home; the middle area houses another exhibit called Brother Can You Spare a Stack, and on the right yet another exhibit by Candace Hicks called Fabrications.

The above three images are from Candace Hicks. You can learn more her and her exhibit here.

The above is from Tomie Arai: Tales from Home, which you can learn more about here.

All of the above are part of the Brother Can You Spare a Stack, which you can learn more about here.  All of the exhibits run through March 30, 2013.

Also while wondering around, I saw some individuals typesetting.  Seeing this was such a blast from my past. I studied graphic art before the Macintosh revolutionized desktop publishing, meaning I learned to pull and set type the long and arduous way. While I have no desire to do any layouts in this manner, it was very cool to see all the wooden cases, draw after draw, filled with metal type, and to look at the various presses. I found myself wondering just when I forgot what letter was where in the case, when at one time I had them memorized, and when I stopped saying typeface and started saying font. And, how strange it was to see that equipment that I remember from several decades back along with a current day Macbook Pro.  It seemed surreal (yet inspirational – ideas for new artwork?).

In any event, if you have any enjoyment of book arts and in the area, do stop by and check out what they have to offer. At the very least, visit their website and blog.

On Saturday I took a class at The Center for Book Arts on W. 27th Street in NY on paste paper printing taught by artist, Lynn Gall.  Also in the class were Benedicte and Shirley! We worked right through lunch, creating and having a blast.  The Center is very cool, and I’ll add a post soon on the exhibits on display (and we stop at FIT to see a couple additional exhibits.

Our instructor, artist Lynn Gall

Shirley, Benedicte, and others hard at work

Shirley, me, and Benedicte having an excellent day

Some of the papers I made

and more …

and more

Benedicte and I both took home a container of paste mixture, and I painted more Saturday night and Sunday, until I was out of mixture. (And, yes, I totally over did it yesterday, and my poor back was screaming for me to stop!)

If you’re interested in making some papers of your own, there’s plenty of information online, including this page from Lorna Aaronson’s here.  I’ve photographed the sheets I painted and already started playing around with them in Photoshop.  The piece on the bottom is a paste print over a digital image.  I have some digital images that had one problem or another, such as an ink color running out or a funky print because the printer needed a head cleaning.  Rather than throw them away, I tend to keep them for possible use in a collage or something else. In this case, I tried a paste print over the digital image. Additionally, I photographed all of the prints and started blending them in Photoshop.  You can really go to town on this stuff!

The following are some of my favorites.

The above is paste printing on top of a digital print.

Macworld in San Francisco wasn’t the crowded event that it was just a few years back.  Like last year, and maybe the year prior (if memory serves me correct), it’s held in Moscone West, the smaller sibling to Moscone’s main buildings.  This year Ashton Kutcher was among the keynote speakers, talking about his role playing the late Steve Jobs in an upcoming movie. In past years I’d wake early to stand on a very long line to listen to Mr. Jobs give his keynote.  However, I couldn’t bring myself to even attend the event Mr. Kutcher was speaking at. It seemed too flat in comparison. Yes, I hit that age when I can easily ramble on with statements that start, “I remember when …”  That being said, I still enjoy attending, seeing what’s new, and taking a few classes to brush up on skills.

This year Adobe had a small presence, mainly showing off Photoshop Touch for the iPad. I’d think by now most people already own it.  I wonder how Photoshop will fare in the coming years.  While it remains my favorite tool, there are a lot of powerful apps for a teeny fraction of the cost.

After Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath, it’s no surprise that gear from Goal Zero immediately caught my eye.  Both Derry and I got the Goal Zero Nomad 7 solar charger (which sells for $99). We also got the Guide 10 Plus battery pack, which includes four rechargeable batteries, solar and USB inputs, and a handy LED flashflight.  That unit sells normally sells for $59.95, but it was included as a show special (nice deal!).  You can find information about the solar charger here.  While I do have two other decent chargers, I really like the idea of a solar charger, especially when out on the road.

Above is the Jot Touch pressure sensitive stylus I mentioned in the post below.  You can find more information about it here, including how to pre-order it for $89. It has something called “palm rejection technology,” meaning you can rest your hand on the iPad while using it, and only the stylus itself will make a line rather than your hand (or finger).  There are 2,000 levels of pressure sensitivity, and you can turn on and off the palm rejection feature. I suspect if I had a bit more money to toss about, I’d pre-order one. Right now I’m still holding off. I use the regular Jot stylus, which I got last year at Macworld (and, funny enough, won another this year).  It has the same round, clear disc that glides along the surface. For the most part, I like it, although every once in the while it skips a bit. To get around the pressure sensitivity, I work in a lower opacity and build up color.  Even so, after trying it and the Hex3 from JaJa, it really is quite nice. Here’s info on the Hex 3.  I see their price is also $89.95.  Another artist I spoke with told me her favorite stylus is the iFaraday (not pressure sensitive). I couldn’t find it at the show and thus didn’t try it, but you can find info on it here.

The first is a sketch I did using an app called Pen & Ink (which is a basic drawing program, no layers — if you need recommendations on other programs with layers, I can give them) on an iPad along with a “Jot” stylus. I drew it from a fashion magazine ad photo. After it was finished, I took it into other apps to try some different effects on the image. I use Photosync to go from my iPad to the computer, as I can’t help but to also use Photoshop, and then use Photosync to take the image back to my iPad.  The one with the black background looks like it would translate well on black fabric with white perle cotton thread and heavy stitches.  I also like the bottom image and am thinking of making it in fabric. At the very least, it’s fun experimenting!

While at Macworld, I took some ipad/iphone sessions relating to artwork and photography, and I met some people doing very cool work.  That was fun.  Plus I came away feeling better about my own work, and that’s always a plus.   The buzz-phrase was “app-stacking,” which is just a catchy way to describe using multiple apps to get a final look.  The process of using more than one application (an app is simply a program) toward your final work is nothing new.  Some of us even giggled at the term as we noted anyone working in digital media has been doing it for years.

I did like some of the new pressure sensitive styluses.  Jot makes a new one that sells for $89.  It requires blue tooth and a charge (which they say will last up to a month).  I suspect if it was available at the show, I would have been swept up in the moment and bought it.  But now that I’m home and giving it more thought, I’m on the fence.  I like that you can rest your hand on the iPad and it doesn’t pick up any lines from it; the only lines are made from the stylus.  However, I like using a combination of fingers and stylus, so I’m vacillating on whether to get it (yes, you can toggle it on and off).   Another is called Hex3 from JaJa, which I tried during some sketching demonstrations.  That felt very good.  I’m on the fence about treating myself to one as I’ve gotten use to working in lower a lower opacity to build up color, but I suspect one is in my future.

I’ve been in San Francisco, primarily for Macworld, and I’m very behind on writing posts. To get moving, I’m posting a photograph I took while on the Land’s End trail. It was a treat seeing a raven swoop down in the area, especially a day prior to the Superbowl.  The first is the original photo, and I then processed it through various iPhone/iPad apps. The 5th down is my favorite.

After my trek to the Guggenheim, we headed to a few other places, including the Leslie Feely Fine Art Gallery to see an exhibit of collages and box constructions by Hannelore Baron, an artist Benedicte spoke very highly of.  The pieces on display were primarily from private collections and her estate. I found the work haunting.  The more I read about her, the more I found myself looking deeper into her pieces.  I learned Ms. Baron was born in 1926 in Dilligen, Germany to Jewish parents who were the owners of a small textile shop.  During “the Night of Broken Glass,” she witnessed Nazis horrors, including the destruction of the shop and her father beaten with a hammer. You can read more about her from this news release from Stanford News Service  and this Wikipedia page. Eventually she and some of her family managed to get out of Europe and settled in the Bronx where she studied costume design.  Sadly, she suffered from depression throughout her life, had the first of three nervous breakdowns after age 20.  She died in 1987.

– Michael Kimmelman, from a The New York Times, October 1, 1993 described the defining characteristic of her work as fragile, “both physical and spiritual-the sense of quiet, private anguish expressed through forlorn materials and cryptic, edgy scrawls.”  Here is another New York Times review on her work.

Photographs were allowed, and I share several images below.

From the catalog, ” Everything I’ve done is a statement on the, as they say, human condition…the way other people march to Washington, or set themselves on fire, or write protest letters, or go to assassinate someone. Well, I’ve had all the same feelings that these people had about various things, and my way out, because of my inability to do anything else for various reasons, has been to make the protest through my artwork…” H.B.

On Wednesday I joined Benedicte and some new friends — Teri, Shirley, and Pat — for a whirlwind day of art-related fun. We started at the Guggenheim where Picasso Black and White is on exhibit through January 23rd (photos were not allowed). The exhibit is the first to explore his his use of black and white (gray, cream) to create his 118 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. There’s good information about the exhibit on the Guggenheim website, and a gorgeous book that includes more than 150 reproductions. The book is a hefty 228 pages and is available from the website.  Pat also posted some wonderful sketches she did on her iPad while at the show which you can see on her blog.

We also visited the Kandinsky Gallery that was featuring pieces created during 1911–1913.  Again, no photos were allowed.

From any vantage point in the main lobby, where photos are allowed, you cannot see any of the artwork on the walls. However, on the seventh floor, photographs were allowed and even encouraged at Gabriel Orozco’s Asterisms exhibit, a “two-part sculptural and photographic installation” that includes “traces of erosion, poetic encounters with mundane materials, and the ever-present tension between nature and culture.”  The exhibit is made up of thousands of items that the artist collected from a playing field near his NY home and a protected coastal biosphere in Baja California Sur, Mexico, which also happens to collect industrial and commercial waste from across the Pacific.

Next up was lunch, then a visit to a gallery for what we hoped would be paintings by Bob Dylan, but that show had concluded, and then a visit to Leslie Feely Fine Art to see Hannelore Baron’s superb exhibit. More photos in the next few days.