considering Abstraction in 2013

Ambivalence 1

  Representational art is art that involves some representation of the real world.

Abstract art, by contrast, does not attempt to show things as they really are.

In realism the artist generally tried to portray things as realistically as they can; abstract art attempts a number of different things but what it does not do is aim at a realistic representation of some actual place or object.  Abstract art can be about ideas, or feelings, expressions, mood.  In effect pure abstraction is one end of a continuum and pure realism at the other, with most 2d art somewhere in the middle.

Attempting to paint things as they really are has a long history and was particularly popular in the mid 19^th century.   Realist painters wanted to make every day life and everyday scenes into Art.  Previous to this the main focus of art had been on religious or mythological topics.  Abstract art began to appear around the turn of the 19^th/20^th century with various movements being developed: Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism – and many more, divisions and subdivisions!

A Summer Day Long Ago

You can take the same subject and paint it abstractly, realistically or somewhere in the middle: e.g. a landscape can be shown in as much detail as a photograph, or more impressionistically with the emphasis on the light and shade, or as abstractly as a simple grid using just the colors from the landscape. Agnes Martin’s grids have often been said to have been inspired by the Canadian prairies where she was born – or the New Mexico deserts where she moved after leaving New York.  Interestingly, she herself always hotly denied this; she wanted her grids to be a picture of perfection, the abstract idea of perfection rather than a portrayal of something actual. And who knows what is true?  I think we probably don’t even remember or have any idea of the power of our early visual memories.

Beehive

The inspiration for abstract art can come from mood, emotions, observations, objects, geometry, patterns, details, even microscopic details – there are a myriad possibilities. Ideas can be developed from other artists’ work (a very common beginning point for artists ever since art began thousands and thousands of years ago), from nature, from  the construction techniques themselves and these days, increasingly from computer manipulations!  There are so many ways that can inspire us to create ever new arrangements of the basic elements.

Fall Study

 I felt that I’ve always made some abstract work – when I added up how many of the 250 or so wall quilts or fiber collages (take your pick!) I considered that about 1/3 were purely abstract and another third significantly abstracted from my original sketch of a building or city or landscape.  In reality, however everything I’ve done has been abstract.  I’ve never once attempted a faithful realistic representation of anything – nature does that better, also an SLR camera !!

Forcefield 2

There are many regions of abstraction, though, into which I’ve never strayed and I think the task I’m going to set myself for the New Year, my second NY resolution after “Spend more time on Making Art!”, is to explore some of the possibilities for abstract fiber art that I havn’t yet attempted.  I think it’s very important (unless one is a commercial decorative artist) to keep trying things you’ve not tried before, to be very adventurous in one’s art.  In order to get into the better shows (the top handful of quilt shows and mixed media art shows) something different and venturesome is required.  And I think that’s right – that’s what those shows are for.  The other shows are for polished techniques and impeccable renderings of ideas we’ve seen before.  I know for Quilt National this year I deliberately chose something strong and bold and a little out of the normal quilt range – and it paid off – or perhaps I was just lucky, who knows?!!  But we do owe it to ourselves to not just keep reproducing the same thing, in many different colors, but instead to push forward, to be Bold.

And so with resolutions 1 and 2 in place, I shall go and make a nice cup of tea!  Meanwhile, I’d love to hear what you have decided to do in your artistic life and what part abstraction might play in it.  Also, d’you agree with me?  Should we be bolder?  Or is polishing better?

And, if you have been, thanks for reading!   Elizabeth

The Ultimate Quilt Judging Algorithm - 9 questions to ask!

Last week I wrote about developing an algorithm to see if the judging of art quilts could be improved -  partly just out of curiosity about decision making but also because I had seen so many amazing pieces rejected for major shows, when quite mediocre ones were accepted. I asked for ideas for questions the algorithm might use. 

But, before we get to that, I must commend N who has already developed her own algorithm for judging science fair projects!  She wrote that judging “seemed daunting [until]  I came up with a number system that rated categories. Added the categories, I could tell whom I would recommend for blue ribbons. It worked great for me, but I was always amazed that the other judges saw things totally differently. I was never really sure if I was thinking out of the box or if they just didn't know what they were doing”.  What’s interesting is that there is, in fact, very little correlation between one’s confidence in a decision of this kind and its validity.  If a person is very confident in their intuitive powers, you need to ask whether they are making that judgment in an environment that is sufficiently regular to be predictable and also whether they have had the opportunity to learn those regularities through prolonged practice. 

The same holds true, of course, for art projects.  When you are blocking out a quilt on the design wall, in judging whether or not this shape of red (or blue) will work well in relationship to the other shapes on the wall, if you have considerable practice and feedback at doing this, your intuitive judgment is likely to be sound, given that the principles of good design are surprisingly applicable to much art.  If, however, you have not had much practice and this is your first workshop in creating an art quilt, then to be asked by the teacher to “use your intuition” is a nonsense! Intuition is the result of prolonged and considerable exposure to fairly regular situations, it isn’t something you’re born with.  Alas!!

SO,  let’s look at the questions that were suggested for our Ultimate Quilt Judging Algorithm.  I wrote that six categories should be enough – you don’t want to be standing there all day looking at your own various attempts, or at the quilt show looking at one piece! Interestingly, only four main categories were mentioned.

1. Immediate reaction, Attention getting and holding

Did this quilt attract my attention? Yes = 1, no = 0

How long did I want to look at it? 5 seconds (0) or 5 minutes? (1)

If I pushed myself to look longer, did I see something more? Yes = 1, no = 0

Does this piece stir something in me? Yes = 1, no = 0

Is there anything in this quilt that distresses, disturbs or bothers me?  Was that the artist’s intent?

 Yes:    Intentional = 1, Unintentional = minus 1. No = 0.

2. Fresh and New

 Have I seen something like this before? If so, is it a development, or an iteration?

Score 1 for not seen before, or a development.  Score 0 for seen before.

3. Color and Value

Looking at it first in grey scale (in order to avoid not only color bias, but also the tendency for different people to see colors in different ways), is it strong, balanced and interesting? Yes = 1, no = 0

Do the colors used work together and, if they clash, is there a reason for that? Work together = 1, clash but with a good reason = 1, clash for no reason = 0.

4. Technique

Does the technique used amaze and awe me? Yes = 1, no = 0

But, are the techniques more the result of proficiency and access to particular technology (camera, printer, high end machine) than to traditional fiber work?  The weight given to the answer to this could be determined by the organizers of the quilt show and who is awarding the prizes! (ha!) If the show supports all techniques, not matter how much technology is used, then the yes is good.  If the show does not, then subtract the 1 given for amazing technique.

Conclusions: What’s interesting is that while the above questions do not directly relate to the principles (which are, of course, guidelines, not rules!) of design (as in “is this quilt design well pulled together?"), but, rather, they are all supported by those principles.  So judges who were familiar with those concepts would be able to hold a discussion using common terminology.  I do think it important that we all have the vocabularly of designs - we think in words by and large, and without words, less thinking is possible!!

There are more questions in category 1, however that is because more people thought it important to mention. And, in reading many jurors' comments, this is definitely the category considered to be most important.   So there are in total 9 questions.   Try them out – and report back!!  Especially try it out on the winners of prizes vs the non winners, and, if you have access, the accepted work vs the unaccepted.

Any comments?  I look forward to reading them! They make my day! both positive and negative!

And, if you have been, thanks for reading!    Elizabeth

The Ultimate Quilt Judging Algorithm

How would you feel if your art quilt was judged via a simple questionnaire rather than a panel of experts?

I read Meehl’s famous book Clinical vs statistical  Prediction: A theoretical analysis and a review of the evidence  many years ago.  I was reminded of it recently by a discussion in Kahneman’s fascinating book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, in itself a further treatise on the parlous and impossibly illogical state of human decision making!!

Meehl showed with numerous examples that in many fields a simple algorithm could make a better predictions than could experts in that particular field.  This included doctors re prognosis (remember the Apgar score they use to evaluate newborns?  It has saved many infant lives), wine-growers predicting how good a wine a particular crop will make, stock-brokers (yes! Wall street could give up tomorrow and computers calculate the best buys and sells and do it better!), financial analysts, sporting events, recidivism rates etc etc.  When I think of how much money we spend on these “fortune tellers”, instead of  on solid research and development into clean energy and so on, my mind doesn’t cogitate, it boggles!

So I started wondering if an algorithm could be developed for judging art, specifically a quilt show…or even if that would be a good thing?  We have all known of amazing quilts that weren’t accepted to shows where they should have been –  and duds that were included to everyone’s disgust (except I presume to that of the maker!!)   Would they have got in if they were assessed simply by a 6 step questionnaire?  It would also be a useful way of assessing one’s own work – which babies need help and which will be stars? I know I’m not alone in wondering which of my art works is the strongest.

Meehl concluded from his meta analyses that in order to achieve the best predictions, decisions should be based on formulae, especially in low-validity environments (like an art show).   What we also know is that the algorithm doesn’t have to include complex weighting – it doesn’t make any difference according to Dawes’ article “The Robust Beauty of Improper Linear models in decision making”.

Weighted complex combinations are no more reliable than simple ones.

 Of course “experts” are extremely hostile to these ideas, they don’t like to think that all their expertise and judgment and sensitivity counts for very little.  And they are skilled in limited, local short term situations, but longer term predictions are better assessed by a mechanical combination of a few variables. However, many have so much invested in their expertise that it makes it very difficult for them to accept their weaknesses as well as their strengths.

Okay – so which variables would we pick for judging a quilt?  Six is enough.  They should, if possible, address different aspects of the work so that there is not too much overlap.  Once the six dimensions have been chosen then a couple of questions for each one could be formulated.  For example, for me one of the important things is whether or not the piece can hold my interest – so the questions might be:

1a. How long did I look at this quilt when I first saw it?

1b. Did I come back to look at it again?

A second variable I think important would be something I’d call “freshness”.  Questions might be:

2a.  Have I seen something like this before?

And so on….so let’s see how much consensus as to important variables we would have.  So please send in your ideas!!  What characteristics of a quilt, or any work of art actually, are the most important?  Let’s see if between us  we can devise the Ultimate Quilt Judging Algorithm!

And, if you have been, thanks for reading!!  Elizabeth

Rara avis: the fiber art collector

 

Birds On The Wire 18” x 20”

 

Forgive the gap in blogging! I’ve recently taken part in two art shows/sales in our town – well advertised, a fair amount of traffic and a LOT of work. I had a selection of small and medium sized quilts, framed and unframed watercolors. My sales of quilts (and believe me the prices were low…I wouldn’t dare tell any of the “quilt professionals” just quite how low!) were minimal. On the other hand, I had absolutely no problem finding buyers for my watercolour paintings, both framed and unframed.
Quilts seem to be a hard sell right now. For one thing few people outside the quilt world see quilts as art. Consider this quotation from the local newspaper’s article about one of the shows:
“Elizabeth Barton weaves quilts that, if viewed without texture, are just as abstract as paintings, never mind their usefulness..there is no reason ever to snuggle under one of her art quilts. Tack it to the wall for sure!”

Spuggies 18” x 18” (i.e. sparrows!)
The fiber art collector is a rare bird: Those who do buy seemed to fall into two categories: people who sew themselves, and folk art collectors. I sold one little piece precisely because the buyers identified it as being very like the work of a well known folk art painter and sculptor.
Quiltmakers themselves are very appreciative of the work and time and planning that goes into making a quilt, but alas they are not usually the richest of folk! Plus, they often feel that they could make a piece like it themselves, if they only got round to it! (ah yes!!). Also I’ve discovered that quiltmakers rarely go to art shows. Despite postcards, newspaper articles etc I think only one or two quiltmakers of the hundreds in the local area came to either of the shows though if you take the quilts to them – for example at a workshop – they are very interested.

The other big problem with quilts is that it’s very hard to make something under $100 – fabric is expensive – whether you dye it or buy it. Good thread is also very pricey and cheap thread is not worth working with, unless you’re a masochist! Even the simplest piece can take at least 20 hours which means that even if you pay yourself just $5 an hour, you’re easily over $100. I do love those folk who say “ah yes, but you enjoyed making it!” – as if somehow you should subtract your enjoyment from the price!!
It’s also difficult to give wall quilt as a gift, whereas a small painting that is fresh and lively will, the buyer feels, be appreciated by anyone. Sadly, they are not so sure about the lasting value, or the acceptance of, a fiber piece.
Institutions, on the other hand, love fiber art. I think mainly because they can get a much bigger fiber piece for their money than they can a painting! Plus, in many ways, quilts are easier to handle and to hang than paintings and you’re not worried that a falling quilt could rending someone unconscious!! Alas, with the recession, many institutions have given up buying art of any kind.
Now, however, with holiday sales out of the way, there’s a whole New Year to look forward to. I’m planning a series based on a very specific group of painters, so I’m in research mode right now which I love! Oh dear, perhaps I should be adding up how much I’m enjoying this ready to deduct it from the price of my future work!

If you have been, thanks for reading! And I’d love to hear about your experiences with art shows/sales……sorry about the slight hassle of copying a few blurry letters when you comment – it prevents a deluge, unbelievable deluge!, of spam.
Thank you! Elizabeth

Pop-Up Gallery show this week

A couple of friends and I were so frustrated with existing art collaboratives – either too expensive or too backward looking or too many folk with boring work – that we thought we’d do our own!  So we rented a gallery for this next weekend: Fri Nov 30-Sun Dec 2.  And then we had a lot of fun thinking whom we could invite to join us.  We wanted a mix of different mediums and all of them of great quality.  We also wanted to have folk that don’t usually show their work so there would be a fresh flavour to the show.  We’ve even hired a musician – no canned musack for us!!  Here’s our announcement!

Having got this amazing group together and the gallery and all the other arrangements, I’ve been hustling to matt or frame up watercolors and finish quilts ready to show.  Since Athens,GA  is one of the monetarily poorest places in the nation – despite being incredibly rich in talented folk, education, learning and things to do – it’s important to keep prices low.  As you know quilts – even for the wall! – take an incredibly long time to make, so I’ve been doing some cropping….both of the paintings and the quilts.  Looking for little gems!

 

I made a quilt some time ago that I never really felt worked – the composition was very awkward as you can see…plus I’d done one very similar which was much better.

So time to get out the rotary cutter!  and I created two little fellows from this big overloaded camelephanteater….

I like them better…more mystery, more abstracted and I’ve got rid of the distracting top heavy bright shapes…I’d noticed when cropping watercolors how I could significantly improve them by doing so, so it makes a lot of sense to do the same thing with quilts.  I’ll take a look at these as they hang on the wall in the gallery (!) and I think I’ll be coming home afterwards looking for many more to cut up!  After all why keep the whole thing when not all of it is working – cut to the good bits I reckon!

And here are some of the watercolors – just local scenes or places I’ve been on my travels ….

 

this was from a photo I took when I was out hiking in the woods with my photography friends…I love photos of people really engaged in doing something.

 

I see this house on my walk every day…it’s a very nice shape especially with the trees providing contrast…I painted it first without the car…but it was obviously lacking something there…the white shapes really needed to continue toward the right hand edge, so I was glad that Rita nearly always has her van parked there on the driveway!

 

I taught at Hudson River Valley Inn a couple of autumns back; there is a lovely park just up the hill from the inn with great views.  I was able to sit and sketch as well as take photographs, and then made the painting later when I got back home.

 

 

I’m in a plein aire group started by a wonderful artist couple that live at the end of our street…they go out scouting for great local sites and were able to find this gorgeous field of sunflowers!  And they were all looking at us (the flowers that is!!)  What a beautiful day we had ..in amongst the flowers.

 

Sometimes we stay in Bob’s garden to paint, they have a very nice little gazebo tucked under the tall pines so prevalent down here in the south….

 

 

and down the street the other way, is a garden with a central lawn that always catches the sunlight in the early morning – love those glowing little sunlit magical areas!

So – if you’re in town!  Do come see the show.  And if you’re not – consider mounting your own show; many galleries are so desperate for revenue I think they’d be happy to rent to you between their major shows.

I’ll report back on how it all went!  If you have been, thanks for reading!   Elizabeth

Abstract vs representation quilts in major quilt shows

 

Somebody mentioned that representational quilts were only 20% of the pieces accepted for the major biennial quilt show, Quilt National, this year and they were wondering why that was. I don’t know if that figure is correct (I’ve not seen the show – yet!) but I started cogitating, as is my wont, about the representational vs abstract choice in art quilts.

 

 

History

I think part of the reason that abstract design is popular in quilts is the very strong historical tradition for pattern within the medium. Quilting developed for several reasons: obviously a need for warm bedclothes – but that could have been achieved a lot more quickly by sewing the biggest left over, or harvested, chunks of fabric you had. Chopping up the salvaged and left over fabric into geometric shapes to be arranged into patterns, however, satisfies both the need to be creative and the need to be able to order one’s life – or at least a small part of it. And, this was an activity to be done in the evenings when you were tired as a restful occupation rather than a mental exercise . So choosing an arrangement you liked and carefully putting in the pieces – a little bit like a jigsaw puzzle – would be much more likely. It’s relaxing rather than challenging, and furthermore the results are known – you know what it will look like when you’re done. People, as a rule, do not like uncertainty.

The nature of the medium

It’s relatively easy to cut fabric into squares and triangles and then sew them together. It’s much harder to sew together shapes that aren’t regular and geometric…so it would make much more sense to utilize cloth pieces to make geometric patterns, however irregular. Are we, therefore, stretching the medium when we use it to create “pictures” or are we going against its essential nature? Is it as daft as using blobs of paint to create a sculpture? Or, intriguing and refreshing?

 

Fashion within the Art World

Quilts as art to be hung on the wall really began in the 1980s when abstract art was very evident in the mainstream art world. It’s very likely that one art form is significantly affected by what is happening in other art forms at the same time. If painting is abstract, and quilts are being made to hang the same way that paintings are, then it’s likely that the makers of those early art quilts would follow the trend of what they saw.

Currently the trend in the art world is for three things I’d say (and I’d love for you to comment!):
1.  installation art
2. art where one medium poses as another
3. video.
A major quilt show recently (the red and white one in New York) was mounted more like an installation that a traditional quilt show.
Currently successful art quilts (think of Amy Orr and John Lefelhocz) are “quilts” made from unlikely things like sugar bags or bag ties).
I don’t know of any “video” quilts yet…but curator David Revere McFadden was lamenting at the SAQA meeting in Philadelphia last Spring about the lack of contemporary quilts using things like video, fiber optics and other electronic components.
So I think fashion is a key operative device in choice of subject.

The task of the juror

There’s another aspect too; bar a few very knowledgeable art critics/curators, most jurors are responding to the work they’re assessing from a fairly limited scope of experience. I would suggest that’s it’s actually easier to detect a poor representational quilt that it is to detect a poor abstract or non-representational one. It’s a lot easier to pick out the wrong notes from a tune you know very well, than from one you’re not as familiar with. We are always influenced (much more than we’ll accept) by the familiar. I read that something like 80% of doctors feel that they will not be influenced to prescribe a certain drug by having been wined and dine by that drug’s manufacturers. Oh how wrong they are!! Psychological research shows clearly that we’ll opt for the familiar over the unfamiliar nearly every time. That’s why advertising works! Of course there are always a few iconoclastic folk around! – thank goodness for them…but generally it’s very very tough to exert the mental effort to resist.

But no judgments!

This isn’t to say, of course, that I think the quilt art form should or should not be abstract or representational. I think the important thing is to achieve good and exciting designs creating long lasting and satisfying images. I don’t think there is any general bias on the part of jurors towards one type of work over another and I enjoy making both kinds of quilts. Vive la difference!

If you have been, thanks for reading!! I look forward to comments!! Please!!

Elizabeth

Workshops

I only like to teach 4-6 workshops a year…I see other art quilt/fiber collage teachers racing around the country and I’m not envious!!  the hassles of flying these days: the long queues, the waiting, the cramped up seats in the aircraft, the uncertainties of whether connections will be made, whether your bags will make it through and what shape they’ll be in when they do ( I once had a suitcase returned to me with its shape changed from a rectangle to a perfect circle.  A bit like a burrito only open at both ends frothing out various undergarments – some meant to be seen, others not!!).   I do like, however, to have a sense of the year ahead with something interesting each month!  I don’t need to see too far into the future, I think that would be awful – how could you have hopes and dreams that way? I don’t understand those folk who go to fortune tellers.  though it is good to be able  to look down the path of a year and see new challenges!  That kind of anticipation is lovely.

One of the challenges I’ve set myself for 2013 is to develop a new workshop based on abstract art.  There are many 20th century abstract painters I love and I’d like to deconstruct their working processes and apply them to quilt design.  I think it could be really exciting.  There’s so much we as quilters can learn from the art world as a whole.  From the masters we can discover new ideas and great inspiration and from the rubbish (and there’s plenty of that, believe me! the average quilt show is usually well ahead of the average sunday painter show in terms of excitement and quality!) we can see what not to do.  It really is helpful to analyze the bad and the ugly as well as the good!

So my workshop on Abstract Design for Art Quilts based on abstract 20th century paintings is going to be at Arrowmont next August!  Here’s a link for the sneak preview of 2013 workshops at Arrowmont:
http://library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1102045958905-70/sneakpeek8.5x11.pdf
And you can actually register – from today…get in ahead of the crowd! (1 865 436 5860)

Arrowmont is, I think, one of the best art and craft workshop centers in the country.  For one thing they are totally full service:  they have excellent workshops, in super well equipped studios, art galleries stuffed with inspiration, a great library with lots of books, all the latest magazines, and loads of computers.  Several levels of accommodation, very good food, lovely climate.  They run a shuttle  to/from Knoxville, TN airport so getting there is not difficult and the ride up into the Smoky Mountains is lovely.  One of the best things, I think, is that there are usually about 12 concurrent workshops in 12 different mediums, so it’s nothing like as homogenous as the average quilting retreat.  There are all ages, all sexes (amazing!), all kinds of backgrounds. And seeing work done in clay or wood or glass or painting is really inspiring.

And now to get back to the abstract paintings I love….I’m going to analyze about half a dozen of my favorites so there’ll be plenty of different ideas to try.  These masterworks of abstract  art are well constructed as well as expressionistic and that’s something I think is lacking from many of the abstract quilts that I’m seeing these days.  Yes they are getting prizes because of the tour de force layering and bright colors – but will they stand the test of time?  Perhaps I’d better consult one of those fortune tellers after all!!

And, if you have been, thanks for reading!     Elizabeth