Clown stepping

I have to put this onto my blog.  I heard about this Venezulean artist, Saras Feijoo,  via the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, where I am currently doing an evening class.  Hers is an inspiring, lively and courageous story.  She has travelled widely and is now living and working in Edinburgh.

 I like the quote on her home page:  ‘Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, to where no one can go any further’.   (Rainer M Rilke)
 

Joseph Beuys and Rudolf Steiner

Joseph Beuys

Rudolf Steiner  Blackboard drawing

Artists who use blackboard drawing include Joseph Beuys, Tacita Dean and Rudolf Steiner (there must be many others). My experiment has led me to look at the ideas and work of Beuys with new understanding.  He was deeply influenced by the ideas of Steiner (1861-1925), for example,  and is known for his idea of "social sculpture".  The following quotation is from wikipedia:


"Beuys believed everybody was an artist, he once said “every sphere of human activity, even peeling a potato can be a work of art as long as it is a conscious act.” The idea being that every decision you make should be thought out and attempt to make or contribute to a work of art which in the end is society. Individuality and well educated decisions are promoted in the person while the government is made of those decisions put into referendums. This point of view invites followers to humble themselves by realizing that they are an important part of a whole not only an individual." 

I have a long way to go before I grasp more fully what Beuys, and for that matter Steiner were saying, but I have begun to understand it intuitively through my work on the litho stone, which is currently linking techniques of print making with my experience of and passion for textiles..

Chance is a wonderful thing - blackboard drawing

Working drawing by Masae Bamba

Diana Hand's interpretation on lithographic stone

A drawing by Masae Bamba  in the book "Memory on Cloth - shibori now" inspired me to try out a new technique on the lithographic stone.  Instead of drawing black medium on the pale stone, I inked up the whole stone and then drew lightly into it to obtain white on black, a technique known as "maniere noire".  It did not come out quite as I had planned, I am not yet sure why, but the results are pleasing, and I will make another attempt.

I like the fact that it is a diagram and an attempt to work out a practical method of, in this case, stitching cloth.  I am interested in these kind of images after my reading of Christopher Alexander and his "constructive diagrams" (see my new blog "Thinking it". for more on this)

Joanna Kinnersley-Taylor Textile artist

Two years ago I did an excellent screen printing course with Joanna (click to see her website), at her workshop in Glasgow.  Highly recommended for her great care, knowledge and skill, and also her complete dedication.  I was very thrilled to see that the work I did that week had been included in her brochure.

Studying the form

Diana Hand   Studying the form #1

Diana Hand  Studying the form #2 yes rider was sitting like that

I am studying anatomy at the moment.  Here are two working drawings in charcoal from my trip to Newmarket last autumn.