Sometimes people send me personal emails in response to my V. Notes. Sometimes those emails include interesting artwork that relates to my post. In response to yesterday’s post about the sumi painter Pan Gongkai, I received an email from Jodi Waltier, a League textiles instructor, including artwork for her upcoming show.
Hey Ruthie,
… am overjoyed to be seeing this ink bonanza you sent out! Wowzer…Here is an ink thingie I made last month as I work towards a new body of explorations of all things umbilical…It has strange overlaps with the sumi world in that I made brushes from my own hair and some sticks…what the hell else is there to do right now, right?
Jodi Waltier Rarely is a bad idea boring.
I could not leave it at that. How could I leave it at that?!? I asked her for more. Jodi replied generously. She sent me much, much more. This is what I found in the next letter, under the subject line “Here she blows…”
WITHOUT APPARENT LOGIC
“My garden should be like nature, without apparent logic. You cannot see it and you certainly cannot understand it, but you just sense the logic.” -Henk Gerritsen Priona, Holland
Artist statement Jodi Waltier
Since logic has taken its leave, for/from so many as of late, my default button is the garden. Any garden, any where. If anything is to make sense to me, I find my clarity of vision operating at a tolerable level or better, when I am outside, amongst living things, that consistently break the rules, if there ever were any, and thrive.
Sometimes seeking, sometimes finding solace, joy, safe harbor, nourishment of body, mind, and spirit. Like a teet on the planet, I can’t get everything I want from it, but always seem to get something I didn’t know I needed.
Trees rustling, birds chirping, singing, warning.
Flowers emitting divine scent or heinous aroma.
Ripe fruits burst open.
Weeds become nutritious offerings when recognized by the slow learner.
Roots become baskets when gathered as such.
Soil and plants enrich themselves when allowed to be left to their cycles.
“Almost everyone can remember in grade school art class placing a sheet of paper over the face of a coin or some other textured object and rubbing it with a crayon. I employed this same method – known as frottage – to create the following portraits. For Beckett’s likeness, I had embossed plates made of …
Exquisite Corpse is a collaborative, chance-based drawing game invented by the Surrealists in the mid 1920s. Each participant draws or collages an image on part of a sheet of paper, folds the paper to conceal their work, and passes it on to the next player for their contribution. This is the first week in a …
New Deadline for Submissions: January 31, 2021 The first annual Seattle Artist League Portrait Awards are aimed at encouraging artists to focus on and develop the theme of portraiture in their work. The competition is open to everyone aged sixteen and over, in recognition of the outstanding and innovative work in drawing, painting, printmaking, and mixed media. 1st Prize: …
Artists need to be able to give and receive feedback on their work, but “critique” is usually synonymous with criticism, and “I like it” doesn’t offer much help to a painter who wants to grow. So how do we see, think about, and evaluate works of art in a way that helps us see, grow, and support …
Umbilical Studies
Sometimes people send me personal emails in response to my V. Notes. Sometimes those emails include interesting artwork that relates to my post. In response to yesterday’s post about the sumi painter Pan Gongkai, I received an email from Jodi Waltier, a League textiles instructor, including artwork for her upcoming show.
Hey Ruthie,
… am overjoyed to be seeing this ink bonanza you sent out! Wowzer…Here is an ink thingie I made last month as I work towards a new body of explorations of all things umbilical…It has strange overlaps with the sumi world in that I made brushes from my own hair and some sticks…what the hell else is there to do right now, right?
Jodi Waltier
Rarely is a bad idea boring.
I could not leave it at that. How could I leave it at that?!? I asked her for more. Jodi replied generously. She sent me much, much more. This is what I found in the next letter, under the subject line “Here she blows…”
WITHOUT APPARENT LOGIC
“My garden should be like nature, without apparent logic. You cannot see it and you certainly cannot understand it, but you just sense the logic.” -Henk Gerritsen Priona, Holland
Artist statement
Jodi Waltier
Since logic has taken its leave, for/from so many as of late, my default button is the garden. Any garden, any where. If anything is to make sense to me, I find my clarity of vision operating at a tolerable level or better, when I am outside, amongst living things, that consistently break the rules, if there ever were any, and thrive.
Sometimes seeking, sometimes finding solace, joy, safe harbor, nourishment of body, mind, and spirit. Like a teet on the planet, I can’t get everything I want from it, but always seem to get something I didn’t know I needed.
Trees rustling, birds chirping, singing, warning.
Flowers emitting divine scent or heinous aroma.
Ripe fruits burst open.
Weeds become nutritious offerings when recognized by the slow learner.
Roots become baskets when gathered as such.
Soil and plants enrich themselves when allowed to be left to their cycles.
It is a circle I see in everything.
It is umbilical.
Round and round and round.
Ladders go up and down.
Hierarchy.
Circles move things, catch things, contain things.
Shared.
An equal partnership.
Spokes on a wheel.
Grab on!
Untether the wheel and be a spoke, that reinforces the wheel that turns and moves and gets er done.
Together.
– Jodi Waltier
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“Almost everyone can remember in grade school art class placing a sheet of paper over the face of a coin or some other textured object and rubbing it with a crayon. I employed this same method – known as frottage – to create the following portraits. For Beckett’s likeness, I had embossed plates made of …
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Exquisite Corpse is a collaborative, chance-based drawing game invented by the Surrealists in the mid 1920s. Each participant draws or collages an image on part of a sheet of paper, folds the paper to conceal their work, and passes it on to the next player for their contribution. This is the first week in a …
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New Deadline for Submissions: January 31, 2021 The first annual Seattle Artist League Portrait Awards are aimed at encouraging artists to focus on and develop the theme of portraiture in their work. The competition is open to everyone aged sixteen and over, in recognition of the outstanding and innovative work in drawing, painting, printmaking, and mixed media. 1st Prize: …
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Artists need to be able to give and receive feedback on their work, but “critique” is usually synonymous with criticism, and “I like it” doesn’t offer much help to a painter who wants to grow. So how do we see, think about, and evaluate works of art in a way that helps us see, grow, and support …