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

Helene Davis and Hand Dyed Artwork

Illustration: Helene Davis. Black Rain.

Probably the most fundamental and guiding principal that colours, literally, the work of textile artist Helene Davis is that of her passion for hand-dyed fabric. Davis, after using bought quilting fabrics for a number of years, moved into the process of hand-dying her own fabrics, making each quilting project a much more personal and individual process.

Illustration: Helene Davis. Black Rain (detail).

Hand-dying is an exciting but often less than accurate medium in which to work. It takes a lot of skill, time, and patience in order to arrive at a range of fabrics in colour-ways, tones, and scale that can easily be worked with. The fact that the images shown in this article have arrived at that point, is easily evident. Davis is in control of the medium from start to finish. By producing her own dyed fabrics, she is able to forge a link between colour and texture that is both personal and individual, something that can never be truly said for bought fabric.

Illustration: Helene Davis. Flight to the Future.

The abstract process and the compositional layout allows the artist free reign over colour balances, textural juxtapositions, and tonal harmonies that seem effortless to the viewer, but are obviously hard to produce creatively without appearing indistinct and in many ways incomplete.

Davis is well aware that her coloured and textured fabrics have to balance compositionally, optically, and even emotionally. Each of these compositions has areas that are cut up into smaller sections of light and dark, placed next to areas where the dyed fabric is allowed to expand over much larger sections of the work. This carefully balanced juxtaposition helps to break up the colours and textures and allow the eye to roam over the composition, picking out small sections and details of interest.

Illustration: Helene Davis. Infrared.

Close ups of Davis work show that the stitch-making is also part of the process, as it is in many art quilts. However, by looking at a close up detail of Black Rain for example, it can be seen that the artist has also added a whole section of beading work as part of the textural and tonal process. This added mark-making process produces yet another layer of textural quality to the piece, allowing the work to be seen from a distance or close up, producing a different quality and experience every time.

Illustration: Helene Davis. Nexus.

These abstract pieces of artwork have been created by using a number of the processes found within the hand-dying craft and that of quilting. However, the way they are re-used and re-combined allows the artist to produce an extraordinarily tactile and sensory experience of colour, texture, and tone. Each piece is a balanced use of these processes, and one that cannot be re-conceived or re-connected after its creation.

Illustration: Helene Davis. World Upside Down.

The work of Helene Davis can be found on a number of sites on the Internet. Some of her work can be seen here. There is also a site, which can be found here, where many more of her hand-dyed fabrics can be seen.

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

The Abstract Finesse of Textile Artist Marion Coleman

Illustration: Marion Coleman. Untitled, 2007.

These four abstract textile art pieces by Marion Coleman, are all linked through a series of commonalities, colour, texture, and pattern. However, probably the most obvious and noticeable link is that of her use of patterned textiles. In these particular pieces, she uses a mixture of locally American sourced textiles and perhaps more importantly, a generous supply of African sourced textiles. It is the use of the decorative and mark-making capabilities of these specific African cotton fabrics that allow the abstract compositions to be so successful.

The power of decoration within an abstract setting could be classed as counter to the ideas of abstraction itself, but in reality, these repeated decorative patterns become all the more powerful because of their relationship with, and their dependence on each other. The sense of balance between the differing qualities of the fabrics, whether that be through size, texture, colour, or tone, are all placed within the composition to both balance and complement.

Illustration: Marion Coleman. When Leaves Do Fall, 2007.

Coleman is an expert in this field and her compositions appear effortless, which is to deny the difficult and often complex task of the distribution of fabrics, many of which can often fight and clash with each other. Abstract quilting can, in many respects, be one of the hardest forms of quilting in which to achieve a satisfactory result. There are few rules or frameworks to work within and compositions are largely left to the skill of the artist.

The more you study these abstract Coleman pieces, the more you can understand about the balances, compromises and relationships that she has forged with both fabric, colour and decoration. The result she has achieved appears effortless, which is as it should be. However, the result cannot disguise the intrinsic creativity and inbuilt compositional quality of the artist.

 Illustration: Marion Coleman. Serengeti 2, 2005.

Coleman's work forges a link between textiles and fine art painting. It is often hard for textile artists to achieve any standing outside their immediate medium. However, through these pieces and particularly that of her more immediate and relevant textile work concerning the profound social and cultural changes within her own African American community, she has been able to tap into an element of relevance and significance that sometimes only fine art can achieve. That she has been able to achieve this through textiles is an achievement in itself.

Marion Coleman has exhibited her work extensively across the US and into Europe. Her work has also been featured in a number of publications and she has a number of awards to her name. She has a comprehensive website which can be found here, where much more of her work can be seen other than the abstract pieces I have featured. Also of interest is the fact that she has a regularly updated blog By a Thread, which can be viewed here.

Illustration: Marion Coleman. Crimson In The Mist, 2005.

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

Reference links:

Marion Coleman website

Marion Coleman blog

The Perceptive Visions of Textile Artist Denise Linet

Illustration: Denise Linet. Random Ascent, 2009.

The work of textile artist Denise Linet resembles that of a complex assemblage of different mediums, experiences, and observations. Linet's work incorporates a whole host of printing processes from straightforward dying and painting to the much more complex and accomplished process of the transference of photographic imagery. These processes give the artist a wide range of surface textures and mark making capabilities in which to build up her compositions.

Illustration: Denise Linet. Pond's Edge, 2009.

It is the very nature of the relationship between the layers and processes, which are such an integral part of her work that seem to so intrigue Linet. These are not random juxtapositions, but are that of a complex visualization of a particular point in space. The artist has taken a moment in time, sometimes at a particular setting or personal experience, which is then interpreted in a number of textile mediums. These separate and often partial experiences and interpretations are then built up to create a complex assemblage, to recreate the overall sensory and emotional experience of that particular point for the artist.

Illustration: Denise Linet. Meadow with Flowers, 2009.

This is an intriguing concept and interpretation of the human idea of seeing and experiencing. None of us can truly visualize or experience completely and wholly at one viewing. We view a point in space and then unconsciously interpret that point using a number of different values and emotions, which are then pieced together in order for us to appreciate what we think we experience as a whole. Linet has reproduced that process of our inbuilt evaluation of time and place in her complex and multi faceted compositions. This is how we truly see the world, as a deeply rich and complex series of visual and sensory perceptions that build up through layers, juxtapositions, and relationships, in order to produce the final imagery that is our memory.

 Illustration: Denise Linet. Fantasy Garden, 2009.

She intrinsically seems to understand the complex multi-faceted visual and emotional parameters of our experiences with the landscape, each other and of ourselves. Through her work, Linet is able to give us an inkling of our own complexity and for that, we must be truly grateful.

Illustration: Denise Linet. Squam Lake - Early Autumn, 2008.

Denise Linet has exhibited her work extensively across the US since the mid-1990s. She has her own website, with more of her work on show, which can be found below.

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

Reference links:

Denise Linet website

Pat Dolan and the Juxtapositions of Life

Illustration: Pat Dolan. Earth Cells.

The organically inspired textile artwork of Pat Dolan can be viewed as both a reflection of the macro or micro cosmos that we live both with and inside. Dolan in fact shows us a world that we cannot see with our own eyes and very often find hard to perceive. It is a world of building blocks, an organically derived series of balances and relationships between near likenesses and complete opposites. This tension between opposite and similitude would seem to be a recipe for constant tension within the natural world, but this complex series of relationships creates an organism that gains strength through the variety of opposites, negatives and similarity groupings.

Illustration: Pat Dolan. Earth Cells (detail).

This complex relationship is cleverly highlighted by Dolan in her work. She often uses very close juxtapositions; in fact a series of strained partnerships would be a closer analogy, between the light and the dark, the soft and the hard and the smooth and the rough. By building up a variety of textural layering she highlights the strange but often fruitful harmony that can be created from a complex mixture of textures, colour tones and scale.

Illustration: Pat Dolan. Going in Circles.

Without viewing the titles of Dolans' compositions, and therefore having foreknowledge of their narrative, we are unaware of whether we are viewing a blood cell or a galaxy, in other words the micro or the macro world. This is indeed as it should be, as the two seem indistinguishable to the human eye and mind, apart from scale. Both seem to use the same building blocks of strained and compatible relationships and Dolan through her compositions shows us that the relationship of harmony that she wishes to highlight for us is very nearly a universal norm.

Illustration: Pat Dolan. Black & White Cells.

Dolan's work is both intriguing and satisfying. She shows us a complex multi faceted world that is full of contradictions, juxtapositions and uncomfortable relationships between opposites, but she also shows us a world that works well and that is the stronger because of the complexity of textures that goes to make up its structure. This template of complex but ultimately successful series of relationships that goes into making up the building blocks of life can be seen as an analogy of our own lives and our complexity when dealing with those around us. Whether we deal successfully with our lives and those of others seems to depend on whether we deal with the juxtapositions that life throws at us, in a harmonious way or not.

Illustration: Pat Dolan. Gone to Seed.

Pat Dolan trained as a fine artist and discovered the potential liberation of textile art and never looked back. Her work has been highlighted in a number of publications and she has exhibited across the US. She has her own comprehensive website where more of her work can be viewed. Her website can be found here. She also has a regularly updated blog which can be found here.

Illustration: Pat Dolan. Gone to Seed (detail).

All illustrations were used with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:

Pat Dolan website
Pat's Art Journal

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