Artists and vision – the “eye” kind

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Do my eyes look a little fearful? Today I’m going under the knife – well, under the laser, for cataract surgery and a lens implant. Actually, if you’ve had this done, it’s not a huge deal and the results are amazing. This will be my second time – the right eye, which I had done a couple of years ago, turned out great.

My friends Carol and and Pat sneaked a very cool good luck surprise into my mailbox this morning – it’s an “eye” milagro card from Nepal.

Here’s the back – you all probably know about milagros, but it was interesting to see it on a card from Nepal.

I will take my milagro card with me to the surgery center!

Thanks to another friend, Joyce, I read a fascinating article about the impact of cataracts and visual degeneration in general on the works of Monet and Degas, Ophthalmology and Art: Simulation of Monet’s Cataracts and Degas’ Retinal Disease.

Claude Monet

Monet was more affected than Degas because he painted variations of light, and his cataracts drastically altered his perception. Degas vision was blurry, but “the striking finding is that Degas’ blurred vision smoothed out much of the graphic coarseness of his shading and outlines. One might even say that the works appear ‘better’ through his abnormal vision than through our normal vision.”

Degas’ last painting, with his vision almost gone

Monet wasn’t as lucky. After 1915, his paintings became much more abstract, with an even more pronounced color shift from blue-green to red-yellow. He complained of perceiving reds as muddy, dull pinks, and other objects as yellow. These changes are consistent with the visual effects of cataracts. Nuclear cataracts absorb light, desaturate colors, and make the world appear more yellow.

One of Monet’s last paintings

It seems that Monet was not a good cataract patient  – Mary Cassat had warned him about the procedure after she had it, but he was desperate and gave it a try at age 82. . Immediately after the surgery he did not want to rest his eyes, that doing so interfered with his work. Depressed, he tried to rip off the bandages.Yikes! You can read the whole story here.

Finally, when you have this surgery, you see all kinds of weird shapes during the process. Check out this painting that a 62-year-old man did to express what he saw during the surgery. Trippy!

Anyway, I’ll report back – maybe I can paint like Degas after this? Nah, but I might see colors differently!

Two delightful workshops by requests

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I got to teach not one, but TWO workshops-by-request this week! The little studio was a busy place.

The first workshop was on Sunday, and it was a family affair. My friend Marilyn had gifted her son and daughter and their spouses with an encaustic collage workshop. They all brought photos that were near and dear to their hearts to incorporate into their compositions.

We did a practice collage first in which we discussed basic composition and safe beeswax techniques. In their second collage, the made personal statements with their artwork. My favorite was a photo of their Grandmother Winnie standing in the snow in her bathing suit! (If you can’t see the images below, click here)

 

I loved working with this family. The men seemed especially adept at expressing their feelings through their art. Marilyn’s husband created a beautiful collage of his mother and her sister. We all got a bit teary as he talked about them during our critique time.

Thursday’s workshop was quite different. Another talented friend arranged it for her writing group. We made talismans with paper blessing beads – the secret notes the writers wrote on the inside of their beads must have been glorious! But the words were rolled, waxed, and gilded, never to be revealed!

Making these beads is everyone’s favorite part. It’s meditative and relaxing, surprisingly easy, and unexpectedly beautiful.

Here’s the video (If you can’t see it below, click here):

Wax and Clay Talisman Workshop from Lyn Belisle on Vimeo.

I’m going to make a list of available workshops-by-request on my website, and if you want to get a group of four to six together, I think you’ll enjoy it.  Special thanks to Marilyn and Pamela for arranging for these enjoyable and creative afternoon workshops!

 

Studio visit: Linda Rael

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If I had to name an artist friend whose artistic sensibilities most closely match mine, it would be Linda Rael. In fact, this is what I wrote in this blog in 2016:

I know of no other artist whose works resonate in my heart as much as those of dear friend Linda Rael. Everything she creates makes me think, “Dang, I wish I had done that.” She incorporates animal bones and porcupine quills and rust and earth and tattered linen and other stuff that myths and magic are made of. I purely love her art!

She Cat by Linda Rael – owned and cherished by Lyn Belisle

Yesterday, I finally got to visit her “new” studio near Boerne in the Texas Hill Country. Some of us from the Fiber Arts group toured her studio, and it’s a wonder any of us ever left – what a great place!

Take a look at the video, hot off the camera:

Linda creates figurative pieces. Soft sculpture and clay are the basic ingredients. They are highly embellished with embroidery, beads and found objects, including natural elements found on walks in the woods.I learned a new technique from her involving wax and fiber yesterday – it’s exciting! Seems like I’m always learning something from Linda.

She’s been published in all the best places:

  • Belle Armoire
    Somerset Studio
    Art Doll Quarterly
    Cloth, Paper, Scissors
    Quilting Arts
    Haute Handbags magazine

A lot of SHARDS readers know and love Linda as well. She creates quietly, constantly, and with cause, always with a nod to her native New Mexico. This quote by Milton Avery always reminds me of Linda: “Nature is my springboard. From her I get my initial impetus. I have tried to relate the visible drama of mountains, trees, and bleached fields with the fantasy of wind blowing and changing colors and forms.” 

I took pictures of her inspiration boards while we were there – maybe some of it will rub off on me.

 Visiting other artists’ studios is such a great way to get an insight into their work and mindset. Linda Rael‘s studio is a remarkable place. Thanks, Linda, for your generosity and your spirit!

Linda Rael

“Although the relationship between humans and our environment is a serious subject, I attempt to approach it with humor and whimsy through my figurative work.”    ~~~~~~Linda Rael

Little spirits everywhere – and a little freebie, too

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Spirit Doll by Zippy Smith

This spirit doll, above, was a present from my friend Zippy. The doll’s head is made from a burr acorn. She’s winking at me. I keep her on my desk to remind me to lighten up when I start taking myself too seriously!

Which leads me to the joy of Spirit Dolls in general, and how other artists use the spirit doll faces I make for my Etsy shop. I love getting photos of their work, and just received some new ones from Gainesville, Florida artist Regina Roper. Look at her fantastic creations!

Regina Roper

Regina Roper

Regina Roper

I asked Regina if she’d share her thoughts with us on SHARDS. She writes,

“I make 3D bead sculptures, vessels that I make the fabric for myself from loose fiber, boxes, just about anything that strikes me. My work is based in themes of goddess, myth, and legend.

The first photo is a piece called ‘Come the Spring, I am Reborn’. This is a small faery doll set into an alabaster base, she is reborn every Spring as the Crone turning to the Maiden and gets younger and more beautiful as the seasons turn until again in winter she must spin a cocoon and hibernate until Spring.

Her sister doll is called ‘The Bright Arc of an Afternoon’ and is a small faery with a goddess arc. The free sitting cloth doll is called ‘Caipora’. She is the Brazilian goddess of the wilds. She is a protecting force, she looks over the animals of the rainforest. In this version, she sits in the branch of a tree and guards a nest containing a single amethyst egg that represents the egg of an endangered Hyacinth macaw.”

These are so evocative of the changing seasons and are filled with personal meaning. Wow. Thanks, Regina!

Mt dear friend, Joanna Powell Colbert, has made a book about spirit dolls that she invites everyone to share. She is incredibly generous. I’ve posted the link before, but here it is again if the spirit starts to move you! How to Make a Spirit Doll.

And if you really want to get deeply into this fascinating craft, my DVD on the subject is not a bad investment! The Magic of Spirit Dolls is available from Artful Gathering.

If you’ve read this far, here is a little freebie for you – a digital collage I made this morning while I was playing with Photoshop. I think I was inspired by Laura Robert’s work at the Art League yesterday!

Click on the image to go to the download link. You can download this, play with it, put it on the front of a card – whatever! I’ll be making more of these to share in the near future. I hope it lifts your spirits!

 

Art, alignment and your New Year’s Resolution explained – maybe

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I was working in the studio yesterday on a striped background for a painting workshop, and when it was finished, I assumed it was going to be a horizontal composition. Then I wondered. . . why had I assumed that? Why was horizontal my default?

So I asked my Facebook friends what they thought. I wanted to see how weird was I compared to them. I posted the painting in three separate pics (combined, below) and asked if they like it better horizontal, vertical, or diagonal. (Remember, this isn’t a finished painting, just a striped canvas, so content isn’t really an issue).

When the FB comments started, they were all over the wall, so to speak. Some people gave reasons, others just stated a preference. Some changed their minds, some had some cool out-of-the-box replies.

I decided that different kinds of people like different linear arrangements – well, duh. But why? Here’s an article from Vanseo Designs that explains part of the reason:

The Meaning of Lines: Developing A Visual Grammar

 Horizontal lines are parallel to the horizon (hence the name). They look like they’re lying down, at rest, asleep. They suggest calm and quiet, a relaxed comfort.

Horizontal lines can’t fall over. They accentuate width. They’re stable and secure. The convey an absence of conflict, a restful peace. Horizontal lines by their connection to the horizon are associated with earth bound things and idea.

Vertical lines are perpendicular to the horizon. They are filled with potential energy that could be released if they were to fall over. Vertical lines are strong and rigid. They can suggest stability, especially when thicker. Vertical lines accentuate height and convey a lack of movement, which is usually seen as horizontal.

They stretch from the earth to the heavens and are often connected with religious feelings. Their tallness and formality may give the impression of dignity.

Diagonal lines are unbalanced. They are filled with restless and uncontrolled energy. They can appear to be either rising or falling and convey action and motion. Their kinetic energy and apparent movement create tension and excitement. Diagonal lines are more dramatic than either horizontal or vertical lines.

Diagonal lines can also appear solid and unmoving if they are holding something up or at rest against a vertical line or plane.

MY CONCLUSION, and how to decide on your New Year’s resolution:

After you have chosen your preference and know whether you are a Horizontal, Vertical, or Diagonal person, you can write a really cool New Year’s resolution. To wit:

  • Horizontal people should resolve to get out of their comfort zones. Take a chance. Eat a squid taco. Experiment with fluorescent paint on a burlap canvas. Paint it with your toes.
  • Vertical people should resolve to lighten up. Loose the formality. Eat a Cheesy Jane’s beanburger and don’t use a napkin. Toss the oil paint realism and go for a Jackson Polluck style with enamels. Get high on the fumes.
  • Diagonal people (oh, how I wish I were one) should resolve to channel their crazy energy. Eat tofu, drink green tea. Paint with only shades of gray on white paper. Yeah, that’ll last about ten seconds.

See what one little question on Facebook can lead to? OK, now that I’ve helped you with your self-analysis and your resolutions, I’m headed out for a squid taco. Ewwww.

Happy New Year! And thanks for reading SHARDS, no matter how weird it gets.

Bee beautiful – construction problem solved

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These little “Bee dishes” that I make for Marta Stafford’s gallery have proven to be popular – yay!

I donate a dollar from each sale to the Rodale Institute’s  Honeybee Conservancy. Besides the fact that bees are vital to the environment in so many ways, they also give us sweet-smelling beeswax, which is vital to encaustic artists!

These bee dishes are made from irregular small slabs of clay, stamped and patterned, and then draped over “something” so they will dry in a slightly concave shape. I had never been able to find a suitable round object to drape them over.

I tried half of a plastic Easter egg, wads of tinfoil, cotton balls – nothing really worked.

The “something” had to be round on top, flat on the bottom, and relative smooth so the design would not be messed up when it was laid over the mold.

It also had to be heat-proof so that I could dry them in the oven and sand the bottoms before they went into the kiln.

Slab form in progress

I finally had an “Aha!” moment about the forms for draping the clay – I am a potter, after all, so could make the “something” myself!

Bee drape molds made of white clay

I rolled some white clay into balls, and formed two dozen small pinch pots to function as little individual drape molds. I fired them, and just tried them out yesterday. Voila! Perfect!

White clay formed into small pinch pots to be used as drape molds

a Bee dish draped over the white clay form

So the white clay mold worked great – it kept the dish from flattening out, and heated it from the inside while it was drying in the oven before sanding.

Bee dish with bottom sanded to flatten it slightly

When I unloaded the kiln, all the little dishes were nicely concave and were ready to be finished with walnut ink and metallic wax – the small hand-formed clay drape molds worked!

Bee dishes fresh from the kiln without their walnut ink enhancement

Bee dish as a ring holder

A lot of making art is about engineering and problem-solving, whether you’re painting or doing assemblage, fiber art or photography. Construction and composition are vitally important, and figuring it out is fun.

Here is the new crop of Bee dishes – Marta sells them for $12 and part of the money goes to a very bee-you-tiful cause.  Hooray for artistic problem-solving!

 

 

One-of-a kind personal cat shaman

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I just finished one of my favorite projects ever – a custom Cat Shaman for a delightful person in Spicewood, Texas. She had seen the piece, above, at Marta Stafford’s Gallery. It was already sold, so she asked if I could make one for her with her own mementos. Of course! What fun!

She mailed me a box of little treasures along with handwritten notes about what each one meant to her. There were scraps of linen and suede, pins and teeth, elephants and medals.

Putting all of these precious things together in a meaningful way was a bit overwhelming, so I started at the beginning by choosing the proper earthenware cat head.

This guy looked pretty wise. I figured he could give me advice as I went along. “Trust the Process,” he said.

It was kind of amazing how things started fitting together inside the little “heart box.”

When you work with other people’s sacred objects, it can be a bit intimidating, but it’s also a privilege – I enjoyed the stories about each piece as I progressed with the assemblage. There are a lot of memories and symbols packed inside this little box!

I kept adding and subtracting and rearranging, and through trial and error, the Cat Shaman guided me through.

He’s going into his packing box today for his drive to Marta’s Marble Falls gallery – Diana, I hope you love him as much as I loved creating him! Thank you – what an honor!

Cat Shaman for Diana, Lyn Belisle 2017

Cork clay?

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I saw Dale Jenssen at a Fiber Arts meeting this week and she gave me a package of Cork Clay. “Ever hear of this stuff?,” she said. I hadn’t, so I took it right home to play with it – play first, research later is my motto.

It looks for all the world like gingerbread. It has a dryish texture and can be flattened with a clay roller.

Naturally, I wanted to see how it would work in one of my earthenware face molds, so I pressed it in.

It came out easily and looked like – well . . . a cork face.

Kinda weird, but kinda interesting, so I let it dry overnight, and then sprayed it with some walnut ink to see what would happen. Yikes, it totally absorbed the ink! Looks like lava rock, but very lightweight.

Next, I tried a bit of silver wax on the surface. I think this would work well as a collage element.

Here’s what the back looks like – very cork-y!

Once the experimentation was done, I decided to see what people really use cork clay for, and discovered that its main use is as a mold or armature for Precious Metal Clay before it’s fired. The PMC is molded around the cork clay, which then burns off in the kiln. I found these photos in a London artist’s blog – very interesting!

My jeweler pals, Jan and Nancy, are probably thinking, “Well, DUH, Lyn – of course that what cork clay is for!” And if anyone else uses cork clay it for artful endeavors, tell me what you do with it.  Thanks, Dale, for the sample and the introduction to a new medium!

The heart of friendship

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Carol Mylar and me in Colorado Springs

When I had a studio on Queen Anne Street back in the 90s, Carol Mylar was my studio partner. We have been the best of friends ever since, and when she moved back home to Colorado Springs fifteen years ago, part of my heart went with her. But we stay in close touch, visit in person as often as we can, and enjoy that special ESP that good friends develop. However, she was able to fool me recently in the nicest way!

“Tiny Dancer”, Lyn Belisle, assemblage 2017, original version

She had sent good luck wishes to me when my work was shown at Marta Stafford’s gallery last month. Little did I know that she and Marta had been in secret negotiation about one of the pieces called “Tiny Dancer”. Carol purchased it without telling me because she wanted to surprise me by sending me a picture of it on the wall in her Colorado Springs home.

“Tiny Dancer”, Lyn Belisle, assemblage 2017, heartless version

The sale was arranged, but when “Tiny Dancer” arrived in Colorado, she had no heart – it had fallen off and gotten lost somewhere. Carol emailed Marta at the gallery, and Marta then casually asked me if I had another little heart  –  the buyer, “Sue Smith,” said it had been lost and wanted a replacement. Fortunately, I had one heart left from in my collection of very old Mexican clay beads.

I thought it was weird that Marta asked me to send it to her rather than the buyer, but I sent the little heart to Marta in Marble Falls, and she secretly send it along to Carol.

The next week, I had a text from Carol with a photo of “Tiny Dancer” taken on the wall at her house – boy, was I surprised – I had no idea how it got there, especially since I thought somebody named “Sue Smith” from Albuquerque bought it.  When I read Carol’s message, I finally got it  – she wrote, “She lost her heart, but now it’s found. Every detail has a story. She’s beautiful!” I was so thrilled to see my work on my dear friend’s wall.

“Tiny Dancer,” happily living with Carol in Colorado

There’s a metaphor here about friends, about love and distance, about losing and finding one’s heart – anyway, the story made me smile – thanks, Marta, for your part in the caper, and thanks, Carol for giving a good home to this little assemblage with the paint-brush leg and newly recovered heart! ♥♥♥

 

 

Exquisite ephemera

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My friend Lisa Stamper Meyer had a great studio show and sale yesterday that showcased her recent painting trip to France. She (lucky woman) enjoyed a time of deep artistic exploration during a month-long residency at the Chateau Orquevaux.

Here’s a piece that I purchased from her yesterday. It reflects some of her signature materials and themes, which came into sharp focus during her journey – and everyone loves her ravens:

Mixed media collage, Lisa Stamper Meyer

Lisa is a master in both collecting and using “ephemera,” those wonderful scraps of vintage paper that add intrigue to artwork. Fortunately for her friends, she brought back packages of French papers, letters, and book pages to share with us. Look at some of the cool stuff I got!

There is something about using authentic letters and book pages that somehow makes one’s artwork more precious than using reproductions.

When you are working with ephemera and printed pages, remember that the same guidelines of composition apply – Alignment, Breathing Space, and Thirds.

Here’s a preliminary collage arrangement of some of the pieces that I got from Lisa:

collage composition practice

And here are a couple of tips for YOU that will help when you use ephemera or printed media.

ephemera composition tips

  • If there is a border on the torn paper strip, use it to good advantage by reinforcing the visual border of your work (see on left edge how the black border stops the eye from going off the page).
  • If you have one torn edge and one straight edge, the torn edge should face into the work (see the top edge) – again, this focuses the viewer toward the interior of the composition.
  • When you use a section of text, align it into the center. If it’s aligned away from the center, the viewer will be inclined to turn the composition outward to try and read it, and that will redirect the eye off the page.

Next time Lisa goes to France, I am going too, with four empty suitcases to fill with nifty French ephemera! (I wish) What is it about printed materials foreign languages that is so intriguing?

If you’re interested in materials like this and can’t get to Chateau Orquevaux, there are good sources on Pinterest for vintage French correspondence like this one

There are also design sites like this one that sell more vintage collage and decoupage ephemera that you can shake a glue stick at -:Southern Blackberry Designs

Somehow, though, going to France on a residency program to collect ephemera sounds a little more appealing. Thanks, Lisa, for sharing your experience, your work (and your fantastic ephemera) with us!