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.
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. UNDER-PINNERS Victorian slang for your legs. #salchallenge …
…Unless it’s very pretty that way. Here’s some snow for the Seattle Snowpocalypse survivors. This woodcut is made with black ink on long fiber board paper. Herschel Logan printed this in 1930. According to Logan, the image was taken from an early photograph. You may have noticed, you astute reader you, that the composition is …
If you’ve taken a class at the League you’ve received a friendly email from Lendy Hensley, our school’s provost. If you’ve been fortunate enough to have been in a class with Lendy, you know she’s the queen of making you feel fun and friendly, instantly at home. Lendy is the behind-the-scenes force that made the …
My last V. Note proclaimed itself “the first of four posts highlighting black artists with professional careers in both painting and printmaking.” I had done an internet search for black artists, and found a Wiki page with a fantastic list of artists I could research. To narrow down the list, I looked for all the artists …
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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…Unless it’s very pretty that way. Here’s some snow for the Seattle Snowpocalypse survivors. This woodcut is made with black ink on long fiber board paper. Herschel Logan printed this in 1930. According to Logan, the image was taken from an early photograph. You may have noticed, you astute reader you, that the composition is …
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