Back to School

It’s that time of year again.
And while not formally, in my own way I too have gone back to school in an effort to keep my drawing from getting too rusty while I wait for our life drawing sessions to start back up in September. The school I’m referring to is proko.com, a deep well of lessons, videos, demonstrations, and anatomy resources created by drawing instructor Stan Prokopenko. It’s a terrific source of solid information with the added advantage of bending to the convenience of my erratic schedule.

My goal has been to concentrate on hands, which I find one of the most challenging elements to draw. But, as I methodically make my way through promo.com’s free library of lessons that span from rock-bottom basics through figure drawing, portrait/head drawing, and the anatomy of the human figure, it’s quickly become obvious that rather than just polishing up some rough edges, I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of the expanse of what I need to learn and the work I have ahead of me. It’s daunting, but it’s also very exciting and should keep me busy for a good long while if I stick with it.
For other resources on drawing hands, see this post.

The other thing I really wanted to accomplish during this time that our sessions are on hiatus is to experiment with different papers to see if there is one that stands out as most appealing to my sensibilities and style of drawing. The fact that the subject matter in these practice drawings is relatively repetitious has opened the door to discovering nuances of difference between the various papers I’ve selected. Key questions I’m keeping in mind are: is the paper hard or soft? can I lay down a very light line and still achieve a decent dark? how much will marks smudge? and is it possible to erase without damaging the surface of the paper? Another issue to address will be how each paper receives color, but I’m just going to worry about graphite for now.

If you’re interested, Prokopenko and fellow art instructor Marshall Vandruff have an amusing and enlightening podcast called Draftsmen that touches on a variety of drawing-related subjects.

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I love when the stars seem to align.
We visited the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal last weekend and one of the first pieces I came across was Cuban artist Yoan Capote’s Abstinence (Freedom) from 2014. It was particularly resonate for obvious reasons.

The piece is quite moving for its meditation on questions of freedom and migration — bronze hand casts of anonymous migrant workers sequenced to spell in sign language the word “Libertad” (Liberty). It also drills home the inherent expressiveness of hands, and in turn their capability to stand in for us as individuals. Capote describes the work as a “metaphor about the absence of voice or the incapacity of decision of common people in front of different aspects of society”.

Abstinence (Freedom), detail, Yoan Capote

Abstinence (Freedom), detail, Yoan Capote

Quite a poignant statement, don’t you think?

One Thing Leads to Another

Alyson Stanfield > Beyond the Studio podcast > Andrew Simonet > Artists U > Making Your Life as an Artist

A huge thank you to Alyson Stanfield of Art Biz Success, who recently put out a call to her Facebook connections for recommendations of podcasts and audio books, and then shared the link to the responses with her newsletter subscribers. I felt like I’d won the lottery in unearthing this treasure trove of new (to me) artist-recommended podcasts to listen to and to learn from while I work. After subscribing to about a dozen(!) of them, I struck gold with the very first episode I heard.

Artists Amanda Adams and Nicole Mueller state that their mission for their podcast, Beyond the Studio, is to help figure out the business of being an artist by “div(ing) deep into the work that happens beyond the studio”. I went back to the beginning of their archives and listened to their inaugural bookclub episode with Andrew Simonet. Simonet was a moderately successful (his words, not mine) choreographer and theater director for more than 2 decades and has transitioned into becoming an author as well. He knows something about the challenges of creative work.

Pennsylvania Peach ©2019 Elizabeth Fram, Ink and colored pencil on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches Like colors seem to have a way of seeking each other out. The cover of this recent issue of Art & Antiques magazine could have been designed to pair with this peach at its peak ripeness and the cheerful summer napkin that kept its juice off my chin as soon as this drawing was finished.

Along the way, he founded Artists U which is based in Philadelphia and is “an incubator for changing the working conditions of artists”. The goal of Artists U is to help artists build a sustainable life and practice. I encourage you to go to the site to read more about them, and then, without delay, download the free book and workbook Making Your Life as an Artist. I don’t care what discipline you work in, this is one of the best, short reads/resources for moving forward with your work that I have come across to date.

One thing definitely leads to another, and the generosity of information-sharing lifts us all.
So with that in mind…pass it on!

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This week My First Peony made its way back from it’s 3+ year stint at the US Embassy in Riga, Latvia, where it was part of the Art in Embassies program. It came back in perfect condition, wrapped exactly as instructed (an occurrence that, unfortunately, rarely happens when work returns from venues far and wide). I feel privileged, especially at this point in history, to be a part of a program that values artwork for its ambassadorial capacity.
If only this piece could talk…

Best Read, Summer 2019

What have you been reading this summer?

This book won’t be for everyone, but it is by far my favorite of the summer.
I found it strikingly beautiful…in its simple yet lovely prose, its sense of place and imagery, and its depth of emotion.

I can’t improve upon this review in The Guardian.

Tin Man’s epigraph:

I already feel that it has done me good to go South, the better to see the North.

~ Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother Theo, May 1890

Safety Net

I’ve been sifting through my Evernote files in order to do a bit of digital housecleaning. As tasks go, revisiting the diverse array of items collected there can be both enjoyable and interesting because it often results in new and unexpected ideas.

Work in progress © Elizabeth Fram

Tools like Evernote and Pocket make it easy to file all sorts of data and images without the burden of storing paper. I never know when something I’ve saved — inspiration, business tools, specifics about art supplies, notes from my reading, calls for entry, etc. — will be useful, but sooner or later a need invariably crops up. That said, every so often it’s fruitful to review the whole lot, culling the bulk for what still resonates.

Skimming through a series of quotes saved from various readings, I found one to be particularly apropos to the new piece I’ve begun this week. At this early stage I don’t have much more than a sketchy idea of the endpoint I’m aiming for, so I know there will be plenty of trial and error ahead on the horizon. But leaning on previous lessons-learned will help me get the stitching off the ground, and I can consider the exercise a fresh opportunity to deliberately practice older methods while hopefully discovering new ways to mesh ideas with process.

Work in progress ©Elizabeth Fram

In discussing the idea of “deliberate practice”, Joshua Foer writes in his book Moonwalking with Einstein,

Deliberate practice, by its nature, must be hard.
When you want to get good at something, how you spend your time practicing is far more important than the amount of time you spend. In fact, in every domain of expertise that’s been rigorously examined, from chess to violin to basketball, studies have found that the number of years one has been doing something correlates only weakly with level of performance. Regular practice simply isn’t enough. To improve, we must watch ourselves fail, and learn from our mistakes.

What a perfect testament to the desire we all have to keep trying. Some pieces make me feel a bit like I’m at the foot of a mountain that I haven’t yet figured out how to scale. The wisdom and encouragement of the above quote is reassuring, like a climbing harness or a safety net, lending support as I wrestle with the possibilities of where I want to take this piece and, perhaps more importantly, where it will eventually lead me.

Work in progress © Elizabeth Fram The stitched-resist dye in this new piece is the perfect example of deliberate practice. At this point I’ve stitched and dyed this pattern many, many times, but this time my goal was to separate the two sides of one length of cloth with opposing colors while still having the piece read as a whole. It’s a first shot at a seemingly simple idea, but tricky to accomplish, and one that will benefit from further practice.

Giving shape to a nebulous idea doesn’t come easily. I appreciate Foer articulating the importance of mindfully failing in order to succeed — an attitude that lightens the overall process.

If you’re interested in what Foer has to say about how important memory is to creativity, link back to this post.

Work in progress ©Elizabeth Fram, Stitched-resist dye on silk, approx. 18 x 24 inches

“Composing Form”

This seems to be an unusually good summer for local exhibitions. So many, in fact, that I’ve had to schedule them into my calendar to be sure I don’t miss out. Last week I went up to the Helen Day Art Center in Stowe to see Composing Form (June 22 – Aug 24), an inspirational group show of contemporary, mostly figurative, ceramics.

Vernal ©Sergei Isupov, 2016, Porcelain, slip, glaze, 17.5 x 9 x 8 inches Isupov’s portfolio is quite impressive. Be sure to read about his Fire Sculpture

Cabeza IV ©Christina Córdova, 2018, Ceramic, 17 x 11 x 5.5 inches

I have a soft spot for clay. My first real 9-5 job was as a potter’s apprentice one summer. I had great dreams of the pots I would make and of how my knowledge of ceramics would grow. While I can’t say I didn’t learn from the job, my take-aways weren’t at all what I had expected. The reality was my biceps grew more than my throwing skills — from wedging a tremendous amount of clay for others to throw, and from lugging 40-pound bags of it to those other potters’ cars.

Question of Honor / Lucretia (After Lucas Cranach the Elder) Teapot ©Kadri Pärnamets, 2015, Porcelain, slip, glaze, 11 x 10.5 x 5 inches

Linea ©Tara Thacker, 2019, Porcelain on canvas, 56 x 14 inches

I stopped working with clay mid-way through college, but my romance with the medium still lingers. A hand-building class was my refuge almost a decade ago while our builders completed the protracted process of finishing our house after we had moved in. I have two clay dog sculptures purchased to mark the times between the loss of one family pooch and the welcoming of another, a not-so-subconscious effort to find canine comfort during those lonely days. And one of my favorite ‘always close at hand in the studio’ books to flip through when I hit a wall or need a break while working is 500 Animals in Clay: Contemporary Expressions of the Animal Form.

The Knight of the Lions ©Robin Best, 2016, Porcelain, on-glaze Xin Cai, 14.1 x 7.9 x 10.25 inches

Horsepower, detail ©Sergei Isupov, 2009, Stoneware, 32 x 19 x 17 inches

The varied pieces in Composing Forms create an imposing sense of presence in the gallery. If you go, be sure to pay attention to how shadows contribute to that force. The work is exquisitely detailed with underlying nuances of mystery, paired with acute observations. Perhaps more than any other quality, it will come as no surprise that I was particularly attracted to the incorporation of drawing/painting into the pieces by Sergei Isupov, Kari Pärnamets, Sin Ying Ho, and Robin Best.

Background, L: Horsepower ©Sergei Isupov, 2009, Stoneware R: Bullseye ©Sergei Isupov, 2009, Stoneware, Front: Shift ©Jerilyn Virden, 2019, Handbuilt earthenware, Hollow construction, Glazed and sanded, 8 x 22 x 12 inches

We are so fortunate to have these artists’ work to enjoy for the summer. Don’t miss out.

Drawing Ghosts

I’ve been searching online and on Instagram to see how different artists are incorporating graphite into their work. For the most part, what seems to surface leans strongly toward photo-realism. In fact, sometimes you have to look twice to be sure a given image isn’t a photograph.
Frankly, I’m not interested in that approach.

I’m much more intrigued and inspired by the fact that, as a medium, graphite makes it possible to accentuate line for line’s sake. I’m not concerned with achieving a smoothly polished drawing. Rather I prefer immediacy and rawness, qualities that I think make for a far more exciting result. The work of Stefan Zsaitsits is a perfect example. Explore his site to see the scope of his skills in portraying a beautiful image while never letting you forget that it is made from line. Graceina Samosir is another artist whose use of graphite is really exciting.

For the past several months I’ve been using Legion Stonehenge, a paper I bought for its sturdy and smooth surface. The problem is, even with the same tools I’ve been using all along, I’m finding it is much more difficult to get the fuller range of values that was possible on the lesser quality Bienfang heavyweight drawing paper I was using before the Stonehenge. Somedays I feel like I’m drawing ghosts.

I tend to use a .03 lead that leans toward the harder end of the spectrum because I want to maintain a very fine point throughout a concentrated build-up of crosshatching. I need to be sure those individual lines maintain their integrity. But I’m not fond of the resulting washed-out appearance.

I’m going to see what will happen by trying a selection of different papers. Hopefully one will have just enough tooth to get a richer drawing without compromising the sense of line I want to maintain. Our life drawing sessions are on hiatus for the next 6 weeks, which will give me some time to experiment.

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Humor and familiarity. One artist (Gerard Mas of Barcelona), two different bodies of work — both on My Modern Met. See and enjoy for yourself: wooden animals emerging from tree trunks & reimagined Renaissance women.

Back and Forth

The more I juggle between stitched pieces and drawings, the more I appreciate the power of their influence upon each other.

I thought it might be interesting to see 5 stages of both a drawing and a stitched piece, side-by-side as they progress. The drawing begins with a very hard lead so I’m afraid it’s a challenge to see here, a fact amplified by its reduced size. You can see its details much more clearly in this post.

It’s definitely an ongoing challenge to give each its due in a given week, and I’m sure that fact delays my progress in each. But the strong similarity between the way an image is built in one discipline really helps me work through the hurdles I encounter within the other.

The drawing is 24 x 18 inches, whereas this stitched piece is about 10 inches square

The upside is it’s a two-way street: having two objectives may slow me down, but working both mediums in tandem ultimately seems to push me further than if I were pursuing only one.

I like working in layers because it lets me build up an image gradually.

I’ve written before about artists I admire who work across disciplines, but only by doing so myself have I been able to truly see the returns materialize.

There is definitely a lot to be said for the oomph of color that comes easily with dyes and thread. Yet I am also attracted to the subtlety of line which I feel conveys just as much, albeit with a quieter voice.

Advantages weave back and forth between the two, each lending a fresh perspective on the qualities that interest me: texture, color, value, pattern…and not to be forgotten, all-important composition – whether encased in an imaginary frame defined by the edges of the paper or within a framework of shibori pattern that is as much a part of the overall piece as the subject.

And then you reach a point where it feels like everything that can be, has been said.

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Summer Reading:
I love the premise behind this list of 20 books featuring seasoned female protagonists from Modern Mrs. Darcy. I’ve read and enjoyed a handful of them, so I know her recommendations are reliable.

My mother was a great reader and an inveterate article-clipper, as perhaps yours is, or may have been, as well. She never missed an opportunity to share something she found interesting or that she thought I should read. And it seems I have inherited that gene, as my kids will attest. But the happy flip side of that is they also share articles and book titles with me!
If you’re looking to liberate yourself by taking control of your devices, rather than letting them control you, check out Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism, courtesy of my son. It’s a speedy read, but very wise and equally as worthwhile.

Colorhue

One of the questions I get asked most often is what kind of dye I use.
I first learned about Colorhue dyes from Glennis Dolce when I took her online shibori course in 2011. I was instantly smitten.

Even though they seem small, these 2oz. -size bottles last me a long time. I’ve learned to stock up during the warmer months so I don’t have to worry about freezing during shipment… a small price to pay for the privilege of living where winter is winter.

I have stayed with Colorhue exclusively since then, and like them for the following reasons:

-They are environmentally friendly
-I get immediate results without a lot of bulky, extraneous equipment
-I can achieve deep, rich colors

Intensely concentrated, Colorhue is an instant-set dye that requires only tap water (no chemical additives, pre-soaks, or heat-setting required). Very little water is used throughout the process. For most projects I probably use a pint to a half-gallon of water total, and since the vast majority of the dye is absorbed directly into the fibers of the silk, there is very little dye remaining to drain into my septic system (unlike the gallons of color-laden water necessary to rinse out excess Procion dye).

This 18″ square area is the heart of my dye set-up, even for large pieces. Yes, it’s really that small. The white mug in the upper middle of this photo contains the eyedroppers I use to apply the dye. I couldn’t ask for a simpler operation, which is exactly the way I want it.

The fact that Colorhue has only 11 colors may be seen as a downside for some. Rather than reaching for a ready-made color, I have to rely on the transparency of those basic eleven, mixing the colors I am looking for from scratch. The benefit is it opens the door to some lovely and unexpected results. This is somewhat reminiscent of the limited palettes many Urban Sketchers prefer in their ongoing quest to trim down the supplies they pack in their traveling sketch kits. (For a fuller idea of the power of limited palettes, read here and here.) And frankly, it’s a task that encourages getting to know one’s colors better; arriving at what you want becomes much easier with experience as you learn how each color interacts with the others.

If you’re selling hand-dyed yardage and need to be able to reliably repeat a color time after time, these are not the dyes for you. And initially they may seem expensive. But because they are so highly concentrated, they stretch a long way – so I wonder if in the end they really do cost much more than other options.

It’s not very glamorous, but having a sink in my studio made me feel like I’d really arrived.

I buy my dyes from Dharma Trading who notes:

“…great when you need fast results and are not too concerned with depth of color. Black is the most difficult color and comes out more of a maroony eggplant. Good silk dyes for beginners, classes, and quick projects.”

While I can see the angle they are aiming for, I think that’s a bit of a bum rap for a great product. As with any medium, time and experimentation are necessary for greater understanding of how far it can be pushed. In fact, I have had no issues with achieving depth of color, or in using black. I think Dharma does these dyes a disservice to imply they are student or beginner grade.

In process. Once the stitching begins I can see the nuances of Colorhue dye up close. The luminescence of the central area in this piece, paired with the arched shape, have put me in mind of stained glass windows. Please note the variation of colors as they mix together, especially around the edges of the arch. It’s rich passages like these which cause me to take issue with the suggestion that these dyes are limited in their depth.

One has to keep in mind they will only work on protein fibers. While they seem perfectly matched for silk, I had very disappointing results trying them on some wool challis. Also, I have only used them for work that is framed and hangs on the wall, never for clothing. With that in mind, I feel like I should supply the disclaimer that the above information is just a window into my personal experience. I make no definitive claims and would encourage you to do your own research to see if they meet your specific needs.

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Operation Night Watch – Live
Did you hear this? The Rijks Museum in Amsterdam has embarked on a huge research/restoration project of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. Rather than conducting this process behind closed doors, they have built a glass box around the painting in the gallery, allowing visitors to watch all work taking place. Check out their website for extensive videos, information about the painting itself, and this huge undertaking. Fascinating!

Engaging With The Ancestors

I’ve been thinking lately about how summer should be a time that follows a different rhythm. If not slower, then it should at least be restorative — a chance to enjoy the extra daylight hours and the delight of walking out the door unfettered by the extra layers we have to cope with much of the rest of the year (not counting, of course, the long sleeves and netted hood I’ve been wearing in the garden as defense against this year’s burgeoning black fly population). Beyond that, and perhaps more importantly, summer should be a time to keep computer work to a minimum, which is what this post is really about.

The beginnings of a new piece, all tied, knotted, and ready to dye

With that in mind, bear with me as I sort through things over the next weeks. The blog and I will still be here each Friday, but I am going to try to write less — an effort to free myself from the laborious editing and polishing that consume so much time. Hopefully that will lead to gaining more hours for the actual stitching and drawing I write about. It will be a way to cut myself some much-needed slack while still sharing what’s going on behind the scenes in my studio, what’s on my mind, and the various miscellanea I run into that I think will interest and, hopefully, inspire you.

As you can see compared to the seam ripper, this is a small piece – the fabric is only 15 x 15 inches. Even so, it took me almost 3 hours to sew and knot the threads. The dye process, however, only took a mere 20 minutes.

I look forward to, and encourage, your continuing comments and emails when something you see here resonates with you. And please let me know how you switch gears to allow for extra elbow room during the summer months – I welcome new ideas.

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Apologies to those of you who are also on my general art mailing list; this will be something of a repeat…

Carefully snipping the knots and removing the threads is sticky and laborious business, taking another hour to accomplish. But the thrill of revealing the pattern makes it all worth it.

I was really happy to receive a link this week to the museum-produced trailer for the 2019 Rijswijk Textile Biennial. It has made me all the more excited to go see the show in person this fall. I’m also looking forward to seeing the illustrated catalog of the show, written by Frank van der Ploeg.

Searching the web, I was gratified to find that Textile Forum blog has written about the exhibit, using one of my images, among others, to illustrate the article. Notice of the show was also picked up by TextileCurator.com

The experiment this time was to break the frame down into smaller sections – a pattern within a pattern, so to speak. Also, I wanted to try this arched shape, rather than keeping all lines straight and square.

For those of you who remember Textile Forum as a print magazine, publication was halted at the end of 2013. Since then the former publisher, Beatrijs Sterk, has continued to “report on themes of textile creation, education and textile cultural heritage via (the) blog, addressing all those interested in textile culture”.

If you are looking for in further avenues to learn about the world of textile art, Textile Forum blog, TextileCurator.com , and Textile Is More! are all sites that look to be fruitful resources. Another site I would love to be able to read is Textiel Plus, but unfortunately it appears to only be published in Dutch.

The finished size of this piece will be about 10 x 10 inches. While it’s interesting to see how the dye interacts with the outer edges of the pattern, I prefer cropping the pattern with clean edges along the perimeter, the way they will appear once the finished piece is stretched and framed.

One final resource is The Woven Road – another site learned about through Instagram. What caught my eye was a quote that was attributed to The Woven Road, and which seems a suitable sentiment to sign off with.

“When we engage in fiber arts, we are creating something, but we’re also participating in historic traditions tens of thousands of years old. You are not only making art for your soul and for future generations, you are embodying the work of our ancestors.”

Palm Reading

Life drawing has plenty of challenges, but capturing hands has been one of the biggest for me. That said, I really feel that including them in a portrait tells a much fuller story than head and shoulders alone. In many ways, they can be seen as a portrait (or self-portrait) unto themselves.

Several resources that have helped me begin to understand the basic, universal structure of a hand and the intricacies of all its joints and angles, are:

The Human Figure, Life Drawing for Artists by John H. Vanderpoel ©1935
How to Draw Hands – The Ultimate Guide by Matt Fussell, online article
and my personal favorite: The Hand, by Jon deMartin, Drawing Magazine, Winter 2015, order a digital copy here

As with most things, there’s no substitute for practice. And beyond keeping the basic building blocks of palm and fingers in mind, I find the most helpful approach, once the overall gesture and contour have been blocked in, is to forget altogether that I’m drawing a hand and to concentrate instead on breaking down the whole into smaller and smaller components, constantly comparing shape to minuscule shape, while repeatedly looking back-and-forth between multiple landmarks of both positive and negative space. There is just no substitute for comparing placement and size to other elements already drawn. Even though it’s natural to get ahead of yourself, thinking you understand what comes next and where it should be, invariably if you don’t double-check, your work will need to be readjusted.

That’s not to say I don’t have a good kneadable eraser that gets plenty of use, but it’s a strategy that does seem to help achieve a more successful outcome.

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There is still time – barely – to go see Janet Van Fleet’s exhibit “Vanishment” at the Vermont Supreme Court Gallery in Montpelier. It closes on June 28th (today if you’ve received this post via email). If you can somehow squeeze in a visit, you won’t be disappointed. This particular body of Van Fleet’s work addresses the dire impact humans are incurring on other species. Profound yet accessible, it is also visually striking. Read Pamela Polston’s comprehensive review in Seven Days for an overview.