Ragged Cloth Cafe, serving Art and Textiles

This weekend I was fortunate enough to visit the Farmington Valley Arts Center (FVAC) in Avon, Connecticut.  A friend of mine had some pieces in FVAC’s show “Art on the Line”.  After viewing the artwork in the Fisher Gallery, we walked around the campus and visited open studios. 

The grounds are beautiful and utterly inspiring; trees, wild flowers and nature trails surround several red brick buildings, and all the studios have large windows; a covered walkway connects them. 

There was no organized tour, but people were encouraged to visit any or all of the 20 working studios.  Each artist was there to personally answer questions or speak with visitors.  The caliber of work is incredible - everything from traditional oil paintings to something that I can only describe as “dynamic particled sculpture suspended from the ceiling” (check out Robin Mobiles studio 3B if you ever get a chance).

But more impressive than the works of art were the people of FVAC.  Everyone has this exciting, creative, contagious energy surrounding them, administrative staff as well as studio artists.  One painter told me that she has grown so much being in this artistic-group environment rather than working alone in her home studio.  I could completely understand what she meant.  This was only my first visit, lasting about 3 hours, and I was so energized and inspired I felt the need to go back and get to work right away… who cares that it was nearly 10:00 at night!   

This is a rare and special place.  I’m not sure if I can do it justice in words.  It felt like a family of artists, not just people renting space in the same building.  They really work together, teaching each other new techniques, offering suggestions, critiques, or just the company of like-minded people.  As you might imagine, they are careful about the artists who are invited to join their community.  To rent a studio you must first go through an interview & jury review.  But even though it is a relatively small, close-knit group, I never felt unwelcome or excluded. 

I was grateful to meet everyone.  Just to know that this place exists is inspiring to me.  Marty Rotblatt, Executive Director, told me that they had a very successful fiber arts show a few months back and are planning another one in the fall.  I made sure to get my name on their mailing list & I’ll post a call for entries when I have more info.  If anyone is now or will be in the Farmington, Connecticut area anytime soon, I highly recommend visiting FVAC. 

Are there communities like this in your area?   It might be nice to know, in case I find myself traveling in your neck of the woods.  I hope you have a place that inspires you and captures your imagination.  Better still, if you find other artists there who are doing the same.

http://www.fvac.net/index.shtml  Click on the link for more info & directions to FVAC.

Most of us, Cafe regulars, are artists. We make art, we think about art, we sell art, we may even obsess about art and we definitely enjoy our time discussing art with our friends at the Ragged Cloth Cafe.

Now, I have a question for you, my friend: do you live with art? I mean, physically, do you share your living space with art? Do you make space for art in your living room, your bedroom, your office, your garden?

Do you like to live surrounded by your own work, or the work of others? Originals or reproductions? Folk, contemporary, or old masters? In your medium or in unrelated mediums? Are you building an art collection or do you prefer to focus on the art making and leave the collecting to others?

My living room in 2002: folk textiles from around the world, ceramics and on the mantel a serigraph by the Spanish abstract painter Manuel H. Mompo. On the very right of the image a piece of mine: “Calligraphy 7″.

The art I choose to live with is a small part of the art that interests me intellectually or emotionally. I like to surround myself with objects created to serve a practical function, and sometimes I use them, sometimes I only display them. I tend to display the work of others rather than mine, since I get to see enough of my work in my studio. I do enjoy prints, I actually do a lot of printing in my work, so I have a few serigraphs, woodcuts and etchings. Mostly though, it is textiles and ceramics: I just love how I can integrate them in my everyday actions.

What about you? How do you live with art?

You may notice that things look a bit different on Ragged Cloth Cafe today. We are in the middle of various adjustments.

15 months ago, a group of dedicated textile artists set out to put together a blog that would look at art — in all its forms — from our own cloth-draped eyes, with our own particular and sometimes persnickety textile perspectives. In the last year, we have posted 125 different entries on artists, art ideas, art queries, art history, art phenomena, and textile art. We have had 157,990 total views, which makes about 1,263 views, on average, per individual post. Not bad for our tiny niche in a (mixed metaphor alert!) small pond.

And now it’s time to make some changes. The challenge of once-a-month posts by each contributor (really, once a month essays, heavily researched and carefully written) has caused us to need to pull back a bit. Moreover, new tools, such as the ability to send a note to your email address directly, have become readily available. You might have seen that we now have an email subscription form as well as an rss feed on the Home page of Ragged Cloth.

This means that we can publish less frequently and less regularly, but still know that our readers will be current on our postings. We are suspending our regular Sunday/Wednesday posting but promising to return at nice intervals, to continue our conversations.

At the same time, we are adding information to the sidebar of each Home page, so you can circle back through older posts and refresh your memory of what was spoken to or just re-enjoy the images that have been deposited there.

So Shiva, the Destroyer and Regenerator, is at work here today. Within the week we hope to have settled on a pleasant and informative format. And then we’ll go about our posting work, finding and bringing to you, our dedicated readers, the thoughts of myriad and fascinating minds, brought to bear on the world that is art.

Subscribe to the email service or set your rss feed and come back as we find new materials to chew on (alas, yet another mixing of metaphors to make a great stew)

And here is an old pal, Mrs. Willard, Dicing with the Devil. Destroyer and Regenerator, Mrs. Willard hides her extra arms and has put on a bit of (camouflage) weight, but she’s still formidable — Shiva in modern dress.

[Editor's Note: the writer of this post insists on designating herself as the responsable,  taken from the Spanish, which she says means "the facilitator of the project, a temporary post, held by a humble soul who knows that in responsibility lies change and hope but who declines to be 'in charge'." In other words, she disavows responsibility as  "Someone Who Knows Anything." She also claims not to have been able to put responsable in italics in the title, which she should have done, according to well-acknowledged copy editing procedures. The Editor has decided to allow the unorthodox form to stand, while refusing to take the role of responsable in this particular instance.]

Alison Watt.
Who is she?

Alison Watt has just been awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) this year 2008 by the British Queen. She is the youngest artist at age 42 to be asked to do an artist-in-residency at the National Gallery which is culminating in an exhibition of her work over the past two years. People are asking whether she is an antidote to Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin who were leading artists of the wildly controversial group known as the YBA’s (Young British Artists) who achieved notoriety and fame through their shock approach to art.
After the shock of these works of art, Alison Watt’s works are quietly lusciously sensual.

.
What does she do?
Alison Watt does “fabric painting.” She paints on canvas but her subject matter is cloth.
Alison Watt’s two-year stint as the youngest ever associate artist at the National Gallery has culminated in a monumental collection of evocative canvases that explore new depths

So how did she get here at age 42?

She was born in Greenock, Scotland in 1965 (incidentally the same age as Damien Hirst) and graduated from the Glasgow School of Art in 1988. She was awarded the John Player portrait award while still a student and from that came a commission to paint the Queen Mother

Queen Elizabeth’s mother

Her early works were dryly painted figurative canvases, often female nudes, in light filled interiors. Gradually she become more absorbed in conveying the quality of cloth and she has said that she was very much inspired by Ingres and his painting of cloth and particularly his handling of folds as can be seen here in his painting of Madame Riviere.

Madame Rivière, Ingres,1806, oil on canvas, 116.5 x 81.7 cm, Louvre

An exhibition of Watt’s work entitled Fold in 1997 at Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery was the first introducing fabric alongside her models.

Fold
In Year 2000 she became the youngest artist to be offered a solo exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art with an exhibition called Shift, with 12 huge paintings featuring fabric alone. Reviewers at the Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh suggested that her work “edged ever more towards the abstract yet had a strange, sensual quality suggestive of a human presence [or absence].”

Shift, collection of Scottish National

Rosebud

Riviere

In 2004 Watt exhibited during the Edinburgh Festival, installing a 12ft painting “Still,” in the memorial chapel of Old St Paul’s Church and showing 6 new paintings at the Ingleby Gallery

Still
For Still, Alison Watt was awarded the 2005 ACE (Art+Christianity Enquiry) award for ‘a Commissioned Artwork in Ecclesiastical Space’

Some of the other works that were exhibited at the same time are below.

Sabine

Flow 2003, oil on canvas, 212.5 x 212.5 cm

The Dark Fold

However, it was the installation of “Still” at Old St Paul’s Church that caught the eye of the National Gallery of London. They asked her to do a residency for two years, the culmination of which is the exhibition which is going on right now. She was the youngest artist at 42 to be so honored and followed in the footsteps of others such as Paula Rego, Ken Kiff and Peter Blake.

What the residency meant was that she had the run of the galleries at any time of day, but especially after hours when she could study the paintings at her leisure without the interference of the general public. She could paint in the studio at the National Gallery and study the paintings on her breaks. Although she was very much inspired by Ingres and his treatment of fabric, after several months she came to find two other paintings really spoke to her. For the first two of her paintings in her National Gallery exhibit her starting point was the white cloth of a man’s stock worn at the neck in the portrait of “Jacobus Blauw” by his master, Jacques-Louis David. The sitter is wearing a plain blue coat with a high collar; a white stock wrapped around his neck is tied in a knot at his throat. It is that knot which was the inspiration for her paintings Pulse and Echo, the titles suggesting the life hidden behind the white cloth.

Jacob Blauw by Jacques-Louis David

Pulse Detail, Private Collection

Echo Detail , 2006. The HBOS Art Collection

The other painting that inspired her was “St Francis in Meditation” by Francisco de Zubaran

St Francis in Meditation by Zurbaran

She was so taken with this painting that she has had this painting placed at the entrance of her exhibition. the depth of shadow in St Francis’ cowl and on his face is echoed in her painting named Phantom.

Phantom , detail, 2007 © The National Gallery, London.

Alison at work in her studio showing the massive scale upon which she was working (©The National Gallery, London).

On a final note I would like to mention that although we just see mostly white images, those who have seen the paintings speak of many colours being used. It is also to be noted that in the days of apprentices, the drapery was mostly left by the master for them to paint. Alison achieved these large scale paintings by herself without any assistance.

There is no limit to the number of worthy and deserving causes that one can support. I am certain that business owners are constantly being asked to donate goods and services. But I also feel that visual artists must be a close second to businesses in the frequency of requests for donations of their art. Textile artists in particular seem to be targeted, perhaps due to the long history of raffle quilts. Is there anyone out there with “quilter” by their name that isn’t constantly approached for donations to silent auctions, live auctions, and raffle drawings? To my prejudiced eye, musical artists are rarely involved in these events. Theater and dance artistry are also scarce. Producing art that can be displayed and then held up for sale seems to make it so much more desirable for donation.

Continue reading ‘Got any spare art? by Linda Frost’