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.
Yesterday I talked about how Carlos San Millan paints the effect of light so beautifully, and posted work by a painter he recommended: Emil Joseph Robinson. Today I’d like to make some points about one of his paintings, and how he has applied ideas of contrast to paint the effects of light. Take a look …
The Reith Lectures, Grayson Perry: Playing to the Gallery: 2013 Episode 1 of 4 Listen in pop-out player In the first of four lectures with the BBC, recorded in front of an audience at Tate Modern in London, the artist Grayson Perry reflects on the idea of quality and examines who and what defines what we …
Exercise your creativity This SAL Challenge is a vocabulary based creative challenge every day for January. Materials are artist’s choice. You can draw, paint, sew, collage, sculpt your food, anything you want. See below for today’s creative challenge. Set the timer for 20 minutes and see what happens. NOMOTHETIC adj. relating to the study or …
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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Yesterday I talked about how Carlos San Millan paints the effect of light so beautifully, and posted work by a painter he recommended: Emil Joseph Robinson. Today I’d like to make some points about one of his paintings, and how he has applied ideas of contrast to paint the effects of light. Take a look …
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The Reith Lectures, Grayson Perry: Playing to the Gallery: 2013 Episode 1 of 4 Listen in pop-out player In the first of four lectures with the BBC, recorded in front of an audience at Tate Modern in London, the artist Grayson Perry reflects on the idea of quality and examines who and what defines what we …
SAL Challenge 27: NOMOTHETIC
Exercise your creativity This SAL Challenge is a vocabulary based creative challenge every day for January. Materials are artist’s choice. You can draw, paint, sew, collage, sculpt your food, anything you want. See below for today’s creative challenge. Set the timer for 20 minutes and see what happens. NOMOTHETIC adj. relating to the study or …