Tuesday 22 January 2013

Facing Exhibition Preparation Paralysis

Someone very interesting with a very very interesting project  visited me yesterday.

I won't name drop because he is kind of well known and working on an art piece that may take several years from his original inspiration, following research and then actual execution to take place. He needs his privacy until it is in the museum or gallery or wherever he chooses to exhibit this particular work of art.

This work will center around a single(?) katazome piece that he painstakingly researches and produces from scratch over these several years.

Wow. Was I impressed? He contacted me last year and asked to drop by for a visit and talk. He was bit of a blessing without a disguise. I've been struggling with several ideas over the past few years. They have been coming into focus lately but had not crystallized. I live by myself, (albeit with a lot of guests dropping by) in a quiet mountain village in Japan. Daily stimulation with nature but not much with the broader constructions of the world around me and my work. (You can't have everything.)

I made some relatively good work for an  exhibition with Tohei and Eros in Europe a few years ago. I was busy being the organizer/logistics man and the work I was to exhibit was second to my responsibilities there.  The work had to be good enough that I wasn't embarrassed. And not embarrassing for them. It was shown with two guys who leave puddles of talent behind when they walk.

That was the level of the bar. Pretty low. I know. Well, the work ended up being a few notches above the lowest common denominator. But my contribution to the whole exhibition could have been much much more. It needed to be lifted from the 'craft' category to something more complex. I saved face by knowing a lot about silk farming and indigo processing, tea ceremony etc... blah... blah. Old stuff for me. I am tired of it. The talks and workshops I held on those subjects saved me. The work sitting and hanging there needed all my effort to communicate the value of Japanese textiles. (Covertly, of course.) The work itself could hold it's own but only to those with a good eye. It wasn't slowing down the fast gallery walkers like Eros and Tohei's work that could stop everyone in their tracks.

I was asked a few days back on what I was planning to do for my next exhibition. I replied that I know what materials I will use. I know what colours and what the basic inspiration is. I just haven't found the groove to slide into and and rhythm to keep going and not stall part way there.

After a full day talking with my visitor yesterday I could sense a groove not far away and felt my feet sense some soft surface below, a no-fear-of-slipping ground. I felt the grass between my toes with socks still on so to speak.  (I slept deep but was exhausted this birthday (49) morning with my head still spinning with possibilities of tackling an exhibition a few years from now. (I want to have it in Italy. Somewhere far away and beautiful with food, killer coffee and stone alleys.)

My visitor is a European artist, who studied film making, print making and textiles at art university. He usually spends a year on a single short film. Using actual film, he crafts the images millisecond at a time to come up with the highest resolution images that sometimes work with intricate surfaces that somehow manifest an interference pattern of sorts. I immediately thought of models of a holographic universe, where all the information of the universe is mathematically present in a minute sliver of the actual interference structure. This image of how the universe is structured has been with me since I was a teenager. Sad to say, it has sat there in my head. When I spread the rice paste on a stencil and then intentionally slightly shift it it to get a offset shadow it comes to mind. I was blown away when my guest intimated that he would like to work around this idea with Japanese stencil dyeing.

 I smiled so much my eyebrows hurt.

He was caught by a small scrap of old Japanese material he saw in a museum on Rhode Island. It was a Katazome piece and with his past work and appreciation with the subtle complexity and shocking simplicity of interference patterns he immediately recognized the sophistication of the Japanese pattern maker / stencil cutter hundreds of years before in a place he had never visited.  While researching his trip to Japan to research all aspects of katazome he found this blog and contacted me.

Looking though a few of the well-thumbed through old books I have collected on Japanese textiles we were able to ooh and awe and pound the table in amazement when we recognized the genius of some of these old pieces pictured.  He is a fine artist and will produce a single cool untouchable piece and place it in the middle of a spotless gallery to sit in splendid isolation.

I soooo respect and envy that.

I'll aim at 12 pieces that are warmer and beg to be placed in someone's home and perhaps have good food and killer coffee eventually spilled on them.






26 comments:

  1. lotsa things
    1. happy happy to you.
    2. you seem to post about my concerns as if you were the voice of my conscience. for that i have deep appreciation.
    3.art vrs function. art has a function which is to soothe the soul.
    and im stopping before i start rambling again happy happy and enjoy the moment.

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  2. Ramble on...please...it is to soothe the soul. And what about these soothed souls? And what about agitating a complacent soul? I am trying to find out where I fit here.

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  3. Happy birthday and thank you for this thoughts giving post.

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  4. Way way over my head, but happy birthday Bryan and I'm glad you're in such a happy place.

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    1. ..over my head as well. I was swept away with his talent and enthusiasm. Out shovelling snow all day my feet kind of hit the ice again...

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  5. I think it's a lifelong journey, trying to find out where we fit. And what an adventure. Happy birthday!

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  6. It was a very quiet birthday. The highlight being a few dog walks on ice. Thank you for the birthday wishes.

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  7. ---happy happy days, always. We create our own happiness from within, the same place as we find our creativity--just have to learn to listen. Art and function can hold hands, they don't have to be separate - but I won't go there for fear of slipping on the ice. Yes, please, agitate complacent souls.

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  8. I can appreciate a singular piece of art in its splendid isolation but I do prefer to see a piece in a home with splendid coffee and daily appreciation.

    Happy Birthday!

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  9. Happy birthday Bryan. Loving this blog and all that you do :)

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  10. Bryan........please........why would you want to fit in, you are perfect where you are and perfect where your going and you will get where your going when you do......there is no rush.
    And happy ho ho to you!!


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  11. I got so many happy happys for my birthday but I won't take any of them back for refund because they were slightly different. Thank yous.

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  12. happy happy birthday. 49 is a good time, a threshold year. i love the "stuff" you're thinking about. here's a weird thing: when i try to make useful stuff, i can't. someone else usually sees a use, for me it's just the making and the thing itself. i fully believe it's an honor to be used, or rather, to have your work be used.

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    1. Hi Velma, Definitely a threshold year. I enjoy the processes but don't aim very often for a practical object. Working with the knits right now I have to change. Once the playing with threads and developing a certain knit is through the machine starts to produce major meters quickly. I have to get rid of all this material. Developing products must go hand in hand with the knits or the material piles up very quickly. Once I break my stubborn head on this one I start to enjoy it.

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  13. Happy birthday Bryan. I enjoy reading your blog. I love your metaphor of feeling the grass between your toes with socks on. Know the feeling and it's a good one.

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    1. I wonder what it means to have socks between your toes and grass on?

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  14. Hi - I just bought some indigo to play and have had several rolls of chinese silk, and found your blog a week or so back when stumbling about looking for inspiration and information Thank you for both! Your post today was a delight to read - it's like an open journal, and I appreciate your generosity in sharing it. I'm moving from a former life into jewellery, having studied visual arts for a few years in the meantime, and I'm setting up a studio here in Adelaide, Australia. It's a hot summer so the thought of a frozen indigo vat is...well...cooling!

    Good luck with the 12 pieces - sounds like you're in a good place and will springboard well from your last exhibition into the next one, with inspiration like your visitor today buoying you along the way.

    Happy birthday...and thanks again.

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  15. Hi Belinda, danke.
    Don't try to get a deep colour on silk material with indigo. It usually looks ... just be careful. Crunched and poured is probably your best bet. And wash it well after dyeing to neutralize the high pH of the indigo or it will really look bad.
    bryan

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  16. Brilliant advice! Many many thanks...B

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  17. Am lapping at the opportunity to see some of your works- nay, a collection. Eager eyes (and souls) await, Bryan. Patiently await.

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  18. You you you...spying on me! Eager eyes on me waiting to get together and catch up. hugs, b

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  19. Dearest Bryan, how interesting that all these thoughts came up on the occasion of your birthday, almost making a visible passage between 48 and 49.
    Equally visible is the need of passing from craft to art: art is joy and dream for the one who makes it, and the ones who enjoy it while having good food and killer coffee.

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  20. Blandina,
    Having a birthday in the coldest time of year when everything is beneath snow and things can only get warmer makes for a break between years. Besides snow shovelling, I usually have time to relax around the house and contemplate projects and life instead of making survival decisions day after day. I am making progress on plans for Italy. Sketch books out and I am ordering book after book from Amazon to do research on what I want to make. I can't smell the coffee yet but I know it will be brewing.

    bryan

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  21. Happy belated B-day, Bryan, sounds like it was intriguing! The art/craft split; artificial hierachy i.e. art vs. craft always makes me uneasy and annoyed. A useful beautiful handmade object has such value and appeal, to me. With use it gets even more meaningful. Will watch with interest as you share more about this project! Kit

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  22. Hi Kit, I think I know what you mean about the art/craft split. It gives me a headache. But I fall right in myself, thinking that some craft work could use more 'art' and some art could use more craftsmanship. I do get a lot of enjoyment out of watching the outcome of creative people. I try to look at each person and their work objectively. Pretty difficult to remain distant when there is a tendency to smile and say, 'brilliant' or frown and look away.

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