Sandra Woock and the Function of Movement

Illustration: Sandra Woock. Backspin.

The textile artwork produced by Sandra Woock is very much open-ended as far as experience and interpretation are concerned. The artist seems intent on both personal observation and understanding originating within the individual, rather than that of the artist.

Although much of the creative interpretation and analysis of artwork is subjective, many artists do try to limit, or at least set some forms of parameter around the interpretation and explanation of their work. Woock however, has decided to rely instead upon the freedom of the individual to evaluate her work as a personal experience. She seems more than happy for the individual to internalise specific feelings, ideas and conclusions that have been arrived at separately by each individual viewer of her work.

Illustration: Sandra Woock. Retro II.

However, there are some universal elements that help to explain some of the factors that link Woock's work. One of those factors is the overpowering imagery that portrays movement and a dynamic energy that seems so much a part of much of her work

The five textile pieces that I have chosen to illustrate this article with clearly show an almost industrial reaction to movement. The expressionist interpretation of the swirling cogs and gears of massive machinery play out their pre-designated pathways, producing nothing tangible or material in itself, but instead function purely for the process of movement itself.

Illustration: Sandra Woock. Spinout.

There is a technical balance found in these pieces that is rare in both fine art painting and more particularly that of textile art. Each textile fragment seems to have found its optimum place within the greater composition, adding its uniqueness to that of the whole. Just as in mechanical machinery, each cog will have its specific task and place within the greater machine, producing efficiency and harmony, so too with Woock's compositions.

There is almost a tangible feeling that there really is some form of physical momentum in the work along with the repetitive lullaby of the relentless but unfailingly constant exercise of the machine.

Illustration: Sandra Woock. Unchained.

These exercises in expressionist composition and styling are effortless in their message, but are equally incredibly complex in both format and composition. They may well give the impression of the internal workings of a giant complex and multi-pieced machine, but they are also the result of a complex and multi-creative artist.

Sandra Woock has exhibited her unique and distinctive style of textile work across the US. She has a comprehensive website where a much larger portfolio of her work can be seen. The link to her website can be found in the reference links section below.

Illustration: Sandra Woock. Pipedreams.

All images were provided with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:

Sandra Woock website

Wen Redmond and the Complex Nature of Observation

Illustration: Wen Redmond. Trees Seen, Forest Remembered, 2008.

Of all the images and work produced by textile artist Wen Redmond, I have chosen a sequence of work produced by her over a couple of years. An observational and emotional tie to the theme of the tree links the images together, but it is perhaps her wide ranging and varied working methods that make the link all the more apparent.

Redmond is an artist that has strived to incorporate some particularly personal elements into her work. Photography seems to loom large, but it is the personal nature of observation and an emotional link with the subject that has guided the artist. An artist with a camera is a powerful combination. They tend not to randomly choose subjects that may prove useful at some point in the future, but are guided more to that of  individual elements within the environment, elements that are not always explainable individually, but become segments of a composition that may well be built up over a fairly considerable time period, or could well fit into place at an early stage of the creative process.

Illustration: Wen Redmond. Tree Forms, 2006.

By taking her own photographs and then printing them onto various textile formats, Redmond is able to control a much wider aspect of the emotional attraction that her work instils in the observer. Although only part of the process, it is an intrinsically important one. The layers of painting, dyeing, and stitching overlap the initial observation, helping to guide and support the composition so that many more aspects of Redmond's bond with the subject matter, becomes apparent.

Although abstract in nature, the narrative in each of these examples of Redmond's work is still very much linked to that of the real world around us. That the artist has chosen to show us much more and at a number of different levels, including colour, texture and dimension, allows us a glimpse at least of the thought processes, both analytical and emotional, that powered that initial photo opportunity, an opportunity that is at the root or foundation of the complex composition that has been built around and over that initial creative judgement.

Illustration: Wen Redmond. Winters Patience, 2008.

One of the most important aspects of Redmond's work is the question of observation. What is observation? How many aspects or plains of thought are involved when looking at a tree for example? By observing the complex nature of Redmond's work, we are made aware that what we observe around us contains a whole raft of layers full of meaning and context. We are aware that we are observing a tree, but so much more information is gathered at the same time. We are usually unaware of the depth of our understanding of one initial focus of our eyesight, but Redmond shows us through her work, the process that is continually being played out between observation and evaluation. Our eyes may well be open, but are we really seeing?

Illustration: Wen Redmond. Turn Around Tree, 2006.

This is one of the fundamental tools of any artist, allowing us to see what we really see. That Redmond has successfully achieved this aspect through the often difficult medium of textiles is doubly in need of praise. Her work will allow us to reach levels in which we can observe her understanding of observation.

Wen Redmond has exhibited her work since the mid-1980s and received various awards along the way. She has a comprehensive website where much more of her work can be seen and she also maintains a regular blog where those interested in her creative and thought processes, can follow her work.

Illustration: Wen Redmond. Root of the Matter. 2008.

All images provided with permission of the artist.

Reference links:

Wen Redmond website 

Wen Redmond blog

Ellin Larimer and the Journey of the Line

 Illustration: Ellin Larimer. Winter.

Ellin Larimer's work celebrates colour, texture, and ultimately that of the drawn line. Through textiles, Larimer is able to express an innate understanding of both the complexities and subtleties that are involved within the parameters of a fine art context.

Through the five pieces shown here, part of her Counterpoint series, Larimer takes segments of her work and produces through a fascinating process of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction, a composition that flows in harmony colourwise, but seems to stagger with juxtapositions, linewise. There is a strange mixture of both tranquillity and movement within the work. The colours and textures play their part in allaying any fears the eye might have as to harsh, sharp, or drastic breaks in the composition, while the drawn line still retains these elements it seems less so because the clever use of colour balance. 

Illustration: Ellin Larimer. Tumult.

There lies the strength in Larimer's compositions. These are not mere cut-ups rearranged in order to form an all over pattern. In fact, all elements of the finished piece go to make up the ultimate journey of the drawn line, a line that uses both colour and texture as its support. The line that Larimer ingeniously draws, takes numerous pathways that at first glance appear to be mostly false starts, but in a way it is true to say that the journey of the drawn line is constantly reinvigorated and recreated. There is never a beginning or an ending to Larimer's work as everything folds in on itself. Whenever it appears that there may be a loose strand unaccounted for, that strand is taken up again and led somewhere else.

Illustration: Ellin Larimer. Verdant Counterpoint.

This constant journey of colour, texture, and line shows a confidence in some of the subtler aspects of fine art drawing which is often made more complex and harder to achieve by the very nature of those mediums. Trying to take a line on a journey using textiles as a base is particularly difficult.

With this particular set of five textile pieces, Larimer is confident in taking us deep within the constructs of her compositions. Follow a line and you are led deep within the confines of her creation on an endlessly looping pathway going behind and underneath, only to reappear again in a slightly different place at a different level. There is no real beginning and definitely no end to this journey and nor should there be.

Illustration: Ellin Larimer. Red Mums in Cloud Shape.

Ellin Larimer has exhibited her work extensively across the US. She has a comprehensive website where much more of her work can be seen. The website is listed below in the reference links section.

All images were provided with the kind permission of the artist.

Illustration: Ellin Larimer. Earth.

Reference links:

Ellin Larimer website

Textile Artist Deborah Gregory and the Cycle of Decay and Renewal

Illustration: Deborah Gregory. Choices and Pathways II.

An interesting phrase that could perhaps be used towards an explanation of one of the main themes of Deborah Gregory's work is that of the natural cycle of decay and renewal. Across her portfolios of textile work is the recurring theme of decomposition and the aging process that is so much an integral part of the lifecycle of nature. However, tempering this inevitable death and decay that affects every living organism, is the eventual rebirth through the raw materials produced from that death.

The great aspect of this universal and sobering theme is the fact that Gregory can choose to interpret the cycle in any number of ways, from the birth, death, and rebirth of an individual, to that of the continuing cycle of the seasons as seen from a shoreline, a group of trees, or a range of animate or seemingly inanimate objects.

Illustration: Deborah Gregory. Genesis.

Gregory's work should not be seen as morbid, dwelling on the inevitable corruption and destruction of life, but should be seen instead as a celebration of the endless possibilities that the natural world entails. Gregory informs us through her work, that what can be alive and vital at one moment, can inevitably decay at the next. However, the basic ingredients of life remain; inevitably become the building blocks of the next life and a whole succession after that.

This cycle is clearly shown in a number of Gregory's pieces; no more so than that in Choices and Pathways IV where it appears as if the old meshed framework is giving way to strong new vertical shoots that have germinated within the old system. This inevitably creates a new cycle that reproduces endlessly as it has done before this frozen moment that Gregory has seemingly captured.

Illustration: Deborah Gregory. Choices and Pathways IV.

Gregory's work has stepped away from the portrayal of colour and texture, as she deals more intimately with the much deeper and problematic ideas concerning the levels and structure of the natural world. This is at a level that we are not always aware of and are often unable to explore freely. Ultimately it depends on the individual whether they wish to interpret Gregory's work as reflecting that of the continual changing of seasons from the birth of spring to the decay of autumn, or whether to delve deeper and try to understand the much more complex movement and reasoning of the natural world, through that of the cycles of life and death, decay and rebirth.

Illustration: Deborah Gregory. Particle and Wave.

Whichever you choose, Gregory's work has a defining and obvious spiritual content. Her work has the capacity to make us stop and think. We are often encouraged to see ourselves as individuals outside of the realms of much of the natural world. However, it is sobering, but also refreshing for an artist to show us schemes on a much grander scale of which we are an integral part. We live in the cycle of life, but we are also of the cycle of life. We are wheels within wheels.

Illustration: Deborah Gregory. Passage.

Deborah Gregory has shown her work in various exhibitions across the US as well as in various other parts of the planet. Her work is included in numerous private collections, but unfortunately not mine. Gregory also has a comprehensive website where much more of her work can be found, including explanations as to the meaning and inspiration of her work. A link to her website can be found below in the reference links section.

All images were supplied with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:
Deborah Gregory website

The Tensions of Nature as Seen by Textile Artist Pat Pauly

Illustration: Pat Pauly. Water, Earth II, 2008.

I have chosen three pieces to represent the textile artwork of Pat Pauly. They are all part of a series she has entitled Water, Earth and are a good indication as to the techniques that Pauly has imbued her work with.

Pauly's use of a bold, but confident colour palette is strikingly made apparent in these pieces. It is not a particularly easy path to take and is often fraught with problems, as colours have to be guided so that a careful balance is achieved. This is made all the more complex by Pauly's extraordinarily broken and fragmented compositions. These compositions seem at times to be combinations of mini-compositional structures. Water, Earth II for example, has five distinctive areas that could be classed as unique compositions that have been cleverly connected to each other in one piece, clearly opposing yet harmonising at the same time. However, Water, Earth IV is even more skilful, as the top part of the composition appears to have collided with the bottom half, the large textured and coloured leaf being used as the element to prise apart a route for the higher compositional segment into that of the lower.

Illustration: Pat Pauly. Water, Earth IV, 2007.

Pauly is well aware of the tension that can be found in the natural world. That some of her compositions in this series seem, at least at first viewing, to be concerned with the structures and textures of the natural world is misleading, as a closer inspection of the work soon makes you aware. Pauly's work goes much deeper than the surface of nature that we are all generally aware of. She is much more concerned with that of the tension, even fractured forces, and elements that lie deeply hidden underneath the coloured and textured surface of the natural world. The juxtaposition of the strata of colour and texture that she is able to build up in some segments of the composition, are seemingly placed next to areas that show a much more distressed, strained and even forcibly broken natural strata, which shows a very high level of compositional awareness.

Pauly achieves much more than an interesting arrangement of colour and texture with the Water, Earth series. She is able, through a textile format, to show us the stresses and strains that are part of the natural world. Through her imaginative use of fabric, she can offer us a glimpse of the juxtaposition of tension and harmony that is part and parcel of the natural world that we are not always aware of, though should be.

Illustration: Pat Pauly. Water, Earth I, 2007.

Pat Pauly is not only a textile artist and exhibition designer, she also finds time to lecture widely and run a number of workshops concerning various aspects of textile art. Her work has been seen extensively across the US since the 1980s. She has a number of exhibitions lined up for 2010. All of this and more can be found at her comprehensive website, which can be found at the link in the Reference links section below.

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

Reference links:

Pat Pauly website