Graphic Design Workshop exercises

NOTE: All of these are unfinished - we had to do the design in the workshop, but it was left to us to finish them off later.
We had to use hands in this design.

Rectangles, in three different colours, covered with a sheer, which was then cut away in places.

Rectangles again, in one colour only. Try to use the spaces as well. This wasn't very successful - the very orderly part of me did this one and it's very static. I have since added to this design - it's *almost* finished, and then I'll add the pic to the blog.

Spirals. Why does this remind me of those ads in magazines for children's worm remedies? Ew. I have not got to completing this yet (but I'm working my way through all of these littlies, so I WILL get there.)

I struggled with this one and still don't like it. We had to do long wavy bits and then cut organic shapes around them. Maybe all of the colours are too strong and I need to emphasize one of them more. I just dont' know. I don't relate to this.


Circles. I enjoyed this one. Circles are such a satisfying shape! I definitely tend towards busy-ness in a design. There are many different textures here - and the brief was to keep to one colour and close tonal values, but to emphasize texture.

Past works 4

I do knit too, although not very much. I've mostly knitted up (or woven) the wool I spun and dyed, so I don't have too much of a stash left.b This is a scarf I knitted from some bought hand-spun and -dyed cotton.















These two, are bits I did and then later just put them to use, as a curtain and as a tablecloth. They are a bit too chaotic, but they'll serve their purpose for now.







This next one is actually a weaving a did back when I used to spin and dye wool. The background is white, handspun, undyed mohair and the embroidery was done with dyed, handspun mohair.

This is an old one that I got stuck with and still haven't completed. It has to do with my attitude to living in Africa - the exhilaration and the despair of all the situations we get ourselves into. I'm sitting watching, sometimes, puttibng my head down in despair, sometimes cheering. It needs something - but it's already so busy (my life!) so I haven't got to what, yet.

Past works 3

Escher's Temptation:
I apologise for the lousy photography, once again. This started as an exercise in working in just black and white, but at the end I just could not restrain myself! I wonder if MC Escher did not ever feel this way in his print medium, and feel glad that I have the entire rainbow to work with.

Detail of the bottom, the 'temptation' part. I succumbed, did he ever?

Past works 2

This one, still untitled, is complete and I had meant to enter it into the 2006 Nathional Quilt show, but the deadline came and went and work was so crazy that I missed it completely. Darn. Typical of the way my life is. I want to title it something like Afro-Optimism: the beat goes on or something to be opposite to all the afro-pessimism there is around.






I made this after borrowing a Nancy Crow book from Sally Scott, so I guess this is also a "Channelling Nancy Crow" type of work. Just the top is done, not yet quilted and I'm not yet certain how I want to quilt it. I'll put Nancy Crow's name in the title somehow.

Current works-in-progress

Working title of the one above is 'Drained' - mainly because that is how I felt/feel. It has text embroidered onto it, which you can't see in the pic, but which I may add in here sometime. I think the function of this piece was just to do a brain-drain, just to get everything out that was stuck in there, so I could flow again. I'm not sure it will ever be for public consumption. The embroidered letters are so skew and mal-sized, I've considered ditching it several times, but kept working. This is one of those that has to be done, not because it has much merit, but so the next one can come out! I had felt dry and empty for so long that I decided to go back to the colours (blues/purples) and pattern (log cabin derivative) of "Windows" and see if perhaps I could recapture something of the previous success? I was 'cashing in' on what I had previously thought out and merely reproducing it, hoping it would make something happen.

I have higher hopes for this one, currently titled "Hi-Tech Biology: Stem Cell Hopes". (Titles change over the course of working on something, depending on which direction they take!) This piece started as a fractal (a graphic representation of a mathematical function) but as I ad-libbed onto it, it became more and more biological. Below are two more pics taken closer (I've only been operating the digital camera for about a week!) although you still can't see great close-ups of the beading detail. I am currently hand-quilting this piece at tea-and lunch-times at my job and in the evenings before the TV.

I'm planning to enter this one for Innovative Threads 2007 where I hope it will stand a chance of being accepted. It is entirely handmade, unusual for me, but all the curvy pieces would just have been so difficult to manoevre on the machine. I have a lot of hope for the therapeutic stem cell technology that is being worked on so hard, especially for what it may be able to do for people with conditions and disabilities such as Diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and many others. Of course it would be even more wonderful if it were to become usable in my daughter's lifetime (she has diabetes, type 1).

Past Works 1

The details pics were meant to come after the full pic, but I've not yet learned how to make that happen, so this will have to do.

I'll start with the one that was accepted for the Innovative Threads exhibition in 2005. I should add that this is the first (and only) piece I have ever entered into an exhibition and my beginner's luck in having it accepted was one of the most affirming experiences in a very long time. Here is the catalogue description.
"Windows of My Eyes":
It is said that ‘the eyes are the windows to the soul’. Both without and within, the world is rich, but so very chaotic! New horizons inspired by Sally Scott. "
(I want to thank another two people at this point - Elisma, who nagged me for years to enter things for exhibitions, and Mariss, without whose insistence I would not even have got this shipped off. )
These are pics I took at home - please ignore the very inauspicious background!

Channelling Melody Johnson

This is what I had fun doing last week. I've been reading Melody's blog for about a month now and been SO inspired. This is not typical of my work at all, but I had fun trying out the fusing and enjoyed how quickly it all came together - I began one evening, worked on it the following evening and finished it the next morning, hanging sleeve and all!

But the fuse does not hold it without stitching. I quilted over this, quite densely, but I can see it will fray over time - and the whole point is the very clean lines. I'm working on a pebbles piece and will probably stitch around every pebble to hold them down. Since the fuse doesn't even come with a brand name - it's just sold as 'applique paper', I will have to make do until I can buy (and afford to buy!) the American stuff.

Welcome to my blog

My condolences on your having stumbled upon this little corner of the WWW! I'm really only doing this because I enjoy reading the blogs of others (especially those of other art quilters!) and I am trying to nurture a little artistic self that is rather timid and needs encouragement and practice in being and doing. I did not initially think of this as a public exercise and having others actually read this feels very intimidating, so for now, the blog is not public. Maybe sometime my little artist soul will have the courage to make it public (or, more likely, she will do so impulsively!)

The cryptic name 'ArtErgoEst' is a (poetically licenced!) mishmash of 3 words in 3 languages: 'Art' (English), 'Ergo' (Latin) and 'Est' (French). It seemed shorter and less unweildy that 'IArtThereforeIAm', although now, when I look at 'artergoest', I wonder. But there it is.

So, to boldly go where I have never gone before, I claim a wee corner of the Web for the musings, ramblings and pics of what I should have devoted far more effort to, than I have in the past (but am now hopefully compensating for!) -my art.
(and, as evidenced by that last sentence, boldly taking the English language where it has never been before either.....!)

Good post on creativity

OK, I did a pile of real work - and then i WABbed a bit again. (WAB - Work Avoidance Behaviour). I found this great post: Danny Gregory. It was good. I am still waiting for my copy of Art and Fear and it will be another 2 weeks before it comes, so in the meantime I am having fun surfing the 'Net for inspiration. Take a look at this link: also great! Fabric Art Journals

Progress?

Yes, some. Slower than I would like, but not insignificant. (If you're confused, I'm talking about progress in my fledgling "career as an artist".)
1. I dashed off a design yesterday at work (work-avoidance-behaviour is my major activity these days) and enlarged it on the photocopier. Got home and was itching to start so fused lots of little bits of fabric to a large sheet of applique paper, got the stucky fuse all over the ironing board, iron, fabrics, fingers, clothes - all because I try to use the ittiest bits becuase the darn paper is so expensive and hard to get hold of, the quality is extremely variable and none of it has a brand name, so I have no clue if it is my technique or the stuff that isn't working.. Anyways, where there is a will there is a way - and I managed to fuse and cut all the little bits until the (small) design was all done, except for 4 pieces, which I had to leave because it was late and I HAD to sleep. Tonight I'll fuse just a wee more fabric and complete it, and then batt and back it and maybe even quilt it! I may even try the escape hatch finish! - although I'll have to modify that too, since I don't have cotton batting and the synthetic stuff tends to flatten and gummify when you iron it. So I might fuse the top onto a backing and then sandwich it and close the escape hatch with a whipstitch and cover that with the hanging sleeve. Scarcity of resource makes you inventive!
2. I actually plucked up the courage to speak to my boss today about a reduced-hours contract! It won't happen for a while, but at least I have brought up the topic. I NEED more time for my art.

Ideas are coming way faster than they can be processed and I grab scraps of paper and scribble and sketch. It's fun and I am happy, but having dreadful back-, shoulder-, neck- and headaches from the tight muscles of excitement. Might have to go and take another painkiller right now.

But it's all good. I'm working it and that is all I have to do - show up and work it.

Plans for this blog

So, now that I have committed myself to this blog, I am starting to crystallise what it is I want to do here. I'd like to go back and ferret out all my works and take some photographs of them all and post them here.
(abrupt end to post as work called!)

Recent Workshops

Just came back from Sands of Time 2006. I attended 2 workshops - Jutta Faulds' Transformed Textiles on dyeing/printing fabrics every which way, and then Odette Tolksdorf's Major Minors on making small works that are either complete in themselves or serve as a way to test an idea for a larger piece.

Both were very, very useful and I thought I had chosen well for where I am at this point. I am raring to go in both areas, with more ideas than I can feasibly accomplish. Having to spend 8 to 5 otherwise occupied is frustrating; this day-job, having-to-earn-a-living thing is really most inconvenient when one has other plans!

Made a few decisions: 1) I am going to keep up this blog, and when I have the courage, make it public. BUT, 2) I am not going to commit to updating it very often, as the scarce free time I have is going to go to making art, feeding my muse and keeping myself and my daughters alive and well, possibly even in that order.

And 3) with my daughter's marvellous digital camera, I shall take photos and upload them here. Photos are very interesting in a blog.

4) I shall email Melody Johnson and tell her how much I enjoy and have been inspired by her blog (again, when I have the courage). Especially her pep talks and quotes on being an artist.

5) Next workshops shall be with Sue Akerman and Macky Cilliers. Very talented women. I may just have to make it a priority to get to Joburg in 2008!

Also did a few things: Ordered the book Odette mentioned called Art and Fear from Kalahari's most convenient 30% off book sale, ordered some dyes and made enquiries about buying larger amounts of dye from various sources online. I feel like I am moving.

It's a happy day today. It's lunchtime and I'm about to sit down on the floor in my office and work on my current piece :)