One year later | the Kintsugi image
Hello. It has been just over a year since I last made a blog post. I thought my blog was dead.
Hard to believe it's been that long, I guess the year went by pretty fast. Truth is I have been making work, however, and perhaps it's time to document my studio experiences once again?
In 2016 I made quite a large number of collage works and in the Summer of that year I had a solo-show titled: Soliloquy. The show was at the Ropeworks gallery in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
To help the design, if you will, for this new collage was the line-work from Cocoon, which held essentially abstract formal qualities previously. With the new collage I wanted to take these cracks and hold the larger compositional elements together with color, instead of lacquer and powdered gold as done with the Kintsugi method on pottery.
The cracks in our experiences, be they portals to enlightenment, strength, pain or fear. They are what is making us stronger, I feel. And not just in objects, but in life too as the enrichment of our experiences and bringing greater value, and balance, to what is important, beautiful, and sacred.
To be honest, I think I went a bit too far with the new collage, but on the other hand it was out of my hands. I started with a narrative(?) element, and got lost in the process, something took over for this one. What I ended up with as a celebration image. I think this collage will end up being an important piece moving forward. I'm still greatly interested in the technique of Kintsugi and all of it's possibilities in thought, action, and in craft. In art.
Thank you for reading.
Hard to believe it's been that long, I guess the year went by pretty fast. Truth is I have been making work, however, and perhaps it's time to document my studio experiences once again?
In 2016 I made quite a large number of collage works and in the Summer of that year I had a solo-show titled: Soliloquy. The show was at the Ropeworks gallery in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Here is one of the works that was in the show:
Cocoon
14 x 14 inches
Collage
2016
Well, I'm back to working and have been cutting up paper again. Not without a great deal of pre-thinking about shape, color, and line in collage. The above piece reminded me of an article I read about Kintsugi, a centuries old Japanese practice of 'repairing' broken pottery.
To illustrate a bit on Kintsugi is a neat and short video that I came across on YouTube:
With the work in progress collage below, that I've been working on the past 2 days, is what I was thinking about as stress-fractures. I don't usually start from such a specific place of departure, but I guess I felt a bit 'broken' from not having been in the studio for such a long time. Also from going through some non-studio hardships that go along with caring for an aging parent.
To help the design, if you will, for this new collage was the line-work from Cocoon, which held essentially abstract formal qualities previously. With the new collage I wanted to take these cracks and hold the larger compositional elements together with color, instead of lacquer and powdered gold as done with the Kintsugi method on pottery.
The cracks in our experiences, be they portals to enlightenment, strength, pain or fear. They are what is making us stronger, I feel. And not just in objects, but in life too as the enrichment of our experiences and bringing greater value, and balance, to what is important, beautiful, and sacred.
To be honest, I think I went a bit too far with the new collage, but on the other hand it was out of my hands. I started with a narrative(?) element, and got lost in the process, something took over for this one. What I ended up with as a celebration image. I think this collage will end up being an important piece moving forward. I'm still greatly interested in the technique of Kintsugi and all of it's possibilities in thought, action, and in craft. In art.
Thank you for reading.
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