The Quiet Stillness of the Textile Work of Gerrie Congdon

Illustration: Gerrie Congdon. Sunset Composition, 2009.

The textile artist Gerrie Congdon produces work that deals with the elemental landscape. The natural world is such a large part of Congdon's compositions that they set both the scene and the style of each piece. Her work forms a collage of experiences all of which are of the quiet, thoughtful and reflective variety, the best type when observing and representing the natural world.

Illustration: Gerrie Congdon. Illuminated Aspens, 2009.

There is a definite element of tranquillity that permeates her work, almost bordering on that of a serene stillness. Congdon reveals through a combination of screen-printing, painting, stencilling and discharging, a series of colour tones and textures that are able to transport us to the quiet places of the natural world. These undisturbed and untroubled havens might well be areas that are tucked away in the memory or imagination of the artist, though it seems more likely to be a matter of compositional thoughts that are imbued with Congdon's love of the natural repose that she finds around her, and that we often find ourselves in forgotten and undisturbed corners of the natural world.

Illustration: Gerrie Congdon. Red Sky, 2008.

Congdon uses both hand dyed and painted fabrics as well as those produced commercially. However, this does not produce an unbalanced or disturbing composition, as all fabrics whether hand produced or bought, are carefully selected and placed within the parameters of the tonal quality that she has chosen for a specific composition. This produces a harmonious balance that places neither type of fabric in any form of conflict, which would in affect destroy any tranquil remoteness that Congdon wanted to achieve.

Illustration: Gerrie Congdon. Sea of Salt, 2009.

It is this remote tranquillity that is the beauty and strength of her work. These compositions are landscapes, but of a more removed, introspective and abstract temperament than that usually experienced with fully representational art. Through her observations she is able to permeate the natural world with an element of silent stillness, that of a clutch of trees on a still winter's day, or of a peaceful and placid cove, where the world has gone quiet and humanity is at bay, at least for a moment.

Illustration: Gerrie Congdon. Breaking Barriers, 2007.

Congdon's work deserves to be seen amid quiet reflection and that of an understanding of the stillness and unstirred elements that still remain within us, perhaps deeply buried to protect them from the world we live in, but still accessible if we wish.

Gerrie Congdon has a comprehensive website, which can be found here. She also has a regularly updated blog where her work in progress can be followed, as well as having a Flickr account. The blog can be found here, while her Flickr account can be found here.

All images were used with the permission of the artist.

Reference links:
Gerrie Congdon website
Crazy for Fiber blog
Gerrie Congdon Flickr

Tricia Coulson and the Human Journey

Illustration: Tricia Coulson. Artifacts 3.

There is an obvious early historical element to the textile work of Tricia Coulson, though perhaps it would be better to say that her work is pre-historical and taps into some of the most fundamental of the roots of the human species, the early ancestral elements that went to make up who we are today, the core of our being rather than the ephemeral and somehow unreliable coating that the twenty first century at least appears to give us.

Illustration: Tricia Coulson. Artifacts 4.

It is the strands within our human journey that seem to make up such an important part of Coulson's work. Two strands in particular seem to stand out in the pieces shown in this article, that of both visible art and of the written word. It could be said that these two elements are possibly the two strands that have helped us the most in moulding our exceptional ability to be both creative and perhaps more importantly, to understand that creative element inside all of us.

Illustration: Tricia Coulson. Artifacts 1.

Although the written word followed on much later than the medium of art, the early lettering on these art pieces could be said to be representational of the spoken as well as the written word. This would then take the images that Coulson has conjured up, back to the earliest days of human myth and legend, when our culture was young, fluid and full of stories and images of wonder concerning the world we saw and experienced around us.

Illustration: Tricia Coulson. Artifacts 2.

The way Coulson produces her work and judges the compositional components that make up each piece is interesting, as it seems to tie in with the timeless quality of her compositions. She removes herself from the measured timeframe of our everyday life today and creates her own space and rhythm in which to work. This conscious removal from the structure of time and limited space opens up a whole world of possibilities and allows her to experience a genuine contact with the larger world that our ancestors knew, rather than the very narrow one that we inhabit today which is full of the power of the rigid framework of time and space that we have created for ourselves as both a useful guide, but which also serves as a cage with a host of inevitable limitations. By opening up this other world that our early ancestors knew intimately, Coulson shows us what we could and have been, rather than what we are. It gives us hope for change, but it is also tinged with the sadness of what we have inevitably lost, probably forever.

Illustration: Tricia Coulson. Pictograph.

Tricia Coulson is a textile artist with a genuine love of her medium, but also she is that rare artist who is aware of the fluid and timeless quality that can sometimes be achieved within the realms of creativity. She works full time creatively and exhibits her work across the US.

Coulson has a website showing her work and statements about her approach to that work. The website can be found here.

All images are used with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:

Tricia Coulson website

The Textile Artwork of Altoon Sultan

Illustration: Altoon Sultan. Turquoise Circles.

Textile art can take many forms and use many mediums. In recent years a number of craft processes not usually associated with textile art have been incorporated by some of the more enterprising and non-judgemental artists. Some of the skills that have been incorporated into textile art include many that were considered to be the lesser craft skills, most of which were on a strictly amateur basis and have rarely if ever seen any professional aspect to their medium. These include such staples of the amateur world as crochet, macrame, hooked and rag rugging, to name only a few.

Illustration: Altoon Sultan. Boxed Circles.

Hooked rugs have always been seen as belonging to a world of instant necessity and practical need. The skill of hooked rugging was never considered part of any Arts & Crafts revival or even part of a middle class accomplishment package that was expected from every woman before and after marriage. These art and craft packages would usually include such skills as drawing, needlework and weaving, but could include some of the more unusual craft skills such as metalwork and ceramics. Rug making itself has a very high standard of achievement and status. When it was strictly in the field of weave, embroidery or even print it could and was often considered to be an art form in itself. However, rag and hooked rugs were another matter entirely and were rarely if ever mentioned in the same format and were not seen as a skill or part of any other medium. These rugs were strictly the property of some of the lowest and most poorly paid members of society. The skill has therefore been tarnished with an image of low social status and inapproachability.

Illustration: Altoon Sultan. Tiles.

Altoon Sultan is a Vermont based fine artist who sees no stigma or prejudice in the skill of hooked rug making and has incorporated it effortlessly into her fine art work as a process of that art rather than as a minor support skill. She has a subtle eye for both texture and colour variation, as can be seen in the images shown in this article, all of which are the work of Sultan. For the artist it is not just a matter of producing a pattern out of the hooking technique, there is also the much subtler use of the direction that the loops take within the composition. Some compositions switch the direction with a change of colour or texture, while others use the change of loop direction in order to add a subtle pattern for the eye to follow.

Illustration: Altoon Sultan. Ovals.

Whereas the traditional hooked rug technique used scraps of fabric that could not be utilised for any other domestic use, and therefore were limited as to the range of the creative process, Sultan does not have this problem. Her fabrics can be individually and subtly dyed to produce a close range of colour shades and tones making the work appear both coordinated and connected. Each piece or ruglet, is an individual and unique process, from initial sketch and composition, through to the dyeing and hand picking of fabric strips, to the actual making.

These pieces are not rugs and cannot be placed on the floor. They are art pieces for the wall only. This is not to say that Sultan finds that there is something embarrassing about the medium or the skill involved in hooked rug making. It says much more about her being able to see the medium outside its narrow confines, often narrowed by outside elements rather than within the medium.

By highlighting the work of Altoon Sultan, it shows that no process within the textile world should be considered lower and less significant than another. All are processes that were learnt and handed down across generations and all have value. If we start to rationalise and grade the differing skills and techniques that are part of the large and varied world of art and craft textiles then we are also guilty of rationalising and grading the generations of people who, usually through necessity produced and honed those skills in the first place.

Illustration: Altoon Sultan. Blue Circle, Red Triangle.

Altoon Sultan has an interesting and comprehensive blog where her thought processes and methods of work can be seen in much greater detail than I have shown here. Her blog Studio and Garden can be found here.

The images were used with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:
Altoon Sultan blog