Posts from the ‘artmaking’ Category

Apr 23

Blogsence*

Romp, ©2013, H. Hunter, 19" x 18," Quilted cotton cloth

My apologies to any of you who may receive this twice. I was editing on 2 computers and accidentally pressed “Publish” before I was done. Here’s to “blogsence”!

I went over to my friend’s house Saturday for some studio time–playtime really. As we talked and caught up, she said that she hadn’t received any of my posts for a while and thought that perhaps there was something wrong with the delivery system.

“Um, well, no, not exactly. Its just that I haven’t been writing them.” As I was leaving later that afternoon, my friend pointed out her calendar to me. I thought she might want to show me an amazing picture. What she pointed to was a series of red dots, extending from the end of April and into the beginning of May.

Pictures that she’s sold? I wondered. No, it turned out that these were days that she planned to keep free with no obligations. That explains my blogsence* perfectly. I was taking time to catch up with myself around the edges of work and family.

I also threw myself into an exciting online quilting class with Lisa Call: “Cutting and Piecing Without a Ruler,”

I loved it from start to finish. Lisa’s critiques were supportive, and gave me great ideas about how I could build upon what I had learned in class.

Although we pieced a number of projects in class, I didn’t quilt them, that is, I didn’t add batting and backing and stitch the whole sandwich together. In fact, I’ve rarely stitched a quilt sandwich and am reluctant to do so.

Gathering courage in hand, I put together a kind of sampler piece that I could practice on. I read various instructions, gazed through books with images of completed quilts and began.

After quilting the first few sections, I was convinced that I would never do anything like this again. Eventually, I got a rhythm going and it was fun, and the action of pushing the fabric through the machine, turning it at regular intervals and watching the pattern emerge was soothing.

By the time I finished, I was ready to begin again (this reminds me of when I gave birth to my first child and was so thrilled by meeting him, I was ready to do it all over again…no, I know it’s a stretch to compare childbirth to quilting, but it was pretty cool.)

I decided to take detail shots of the piece above and divide it into roughly 4 sections, exploring the possibilities inherent in each one. So that’s what I’m doing. My iron is ready: full steam ahead!

Romp, detail

*Blogsence: Absence from blogs and blog writing

Mar 26

7 Comments

Staying Open…in the Studio

Mending Wall 6, ©2012, 38" x 12," Paper, fabric, watercolor on panel

When I began this piece, I wanted to find a new way to work with triptychs. My love for the magical number 3 and Amish quilts stimulated the idea of a 3 panel piece using a traditional 9 patch block worked out in paper instead of fabric.

I extended the idea of the botanical blocks from previous pieces, but combined them with pieces of children’s school work. I combed the streets around my house for fallen pieces of paper and other wrinkled script that caught my eye.

The piece was created block by block, assembled, and then reworked so that the blocks harmonized.

As I stare at it now, several months later, I’m struck by the contrast between the squares containing children’s numbers, letters, drawings, and the more adept collage squares.

It reminds me of trying to balance the improvisational demands of practicing art therapy in a busy urban hospital with my more considered collage work in the studio.

I also thought about the concept of “blending” in the Japanese martial art, Aikido. The Japanese character ai, or, harmony, can be thought of as blending energies or forces. The principle of harmony is to avoid conflict by transforming the energy of opposition into a new form of resolution. That’s what I’m working towards.

With this in mind, I’ve made a big decision. I backed out of our city’s Open Studio.

Recently, two close family members were diagnosed with serious autoimmune disorders. There have been a lot of doctor’s appointments and shifting of priorities, and for now, I need to keep my concerns closer to home.

It’s funny; in encircling my wagons, I’ve actually spent more time in the studio and without the concerns of showing it, I’ve had more energy to explore new directions in my work.

Initially I was very sad; about the huge changes that illness can bring and the loss of opportunity. But for a long time, I’ve wanted to learn new techniques, take classes in art and design, without the concurrent pressure to produce for shows. If what they say is true, that when one door closes, a new window opens, I think I’ve found that opening.

Mar 4

6 Comments

Opening a Studio

Mending Wall 5, ©2012, 12" x 12," Watercolor, fabric, paper on panel

I recently googled the history of Open Studios and discovered that the open studios, called salons, were started by a certain Madame De Scudéry in Paris. It was a place where intellectuals, writers and artists gathered for discussions.

More recent open studios, the article said, focus on the creative act of making and sharing. And while that definition applies to studios where people are making art in a common space, I like it: a place that focuses on making and sharing.

And that’s exactly what I’m going to do April 12 and 13th, when along with 23 other artists, I’m going to be part of an open studio tour sponsored by our local Davis, CA gallery, the Artery.

I’m taking on the challenge because for a long time, I’ve really wanted to share my artwork in an intimate space; it’s intimate work and the more impersonal walls of a gallery don’t always do it justice. It looks good in a gallery, but in the home, it looks great.

When one of my friends pitched the idea to me, I bit.

I also decided to extend the open studio into my blog and for the next several posts, I’ll introduce you to some of the work I’ll be sharing in April.

The piece above is part of a series I worked on over the last summer. It’s called Mending Wall, after a poem by Robert Frost.

Before I built a wall I’d ask

What I was walling in or out

And to whom I was like to give offense

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That wants it down.

In the series, I explore how I put up walls with people, when I take them down and under what conditions. Walls are needed in life; the trick is to figure out what to do when.

The process of putting the text and image together was not unlike building a wall. I used watercolor paintings of jade plants, which I had cut into squarish “stones” and blocks of text from some papers I’d found at my father’s: 50 year old documents from his career as an English professor.

Lest I sound like I’m still in an English lit. class, I have to tell you that when I made the collage, none of this was conscious. I was spurred on by sensation and under the spell of memory.

Jan 28

6 Comments

The Power of Inventory

Polihali Beach, ©2007, 9" x 12," handmade paper and raffia

This past week I’ve been looking for the origins of my own artwork so I can create a database, in other words, I’m doing an inventory.

The word “inventory” is close to invention, don’t you think? One dictionary says that it comes “from the Latin inventus, pp. of invenire “to find” (see invention).” I’ve tried to do this “finding” in the past and always abandoned the effort, overwhelmed by what feels like the task of herding cats.

Tropical Reverie, ©2010, H. Hunter, fabric, 9" x 12," paper on paper

I tried to keep an open mind though, even as I asked myself “when did I create this picture? And what was I thinking about anyway?” I must have wondered about all this in less than a whisper, because my husband abruptly asked, “why are you doing this?”

Good question–one that deserves an answer.

As each year collects itself like a growing season, bringing in a harvest, artwork accumulates. The more it piles up, the less I remember about its origins. So, I realized, in an odd way, I was rewriting my own history as an artist.

In Spite Of, ©2009, 12" x 12" x 2," paper, fabric, foil on panel

It was a surprising thought, one that buoyed me up and reminded me of something else my husband had said earlier: “You’re sewing yourself into the universe everyday. Otherwise you won’t feel a part of it and you’ll be out of it, ill at ease and maybe even dis-eased.”

A wise person, my husband. I thought he’d nailed it.

Since then, what began as something of a forced march has turned into a wonderful wild scavenger hunt–one requiring the detective skills of a Sherlock Holmes as clues pop up in the oddest places; a misplaced file, photographs hidden in plain sight on i-photo or a picture hanging in the corner of our meti-dia-beading (short for meditation, dining and beading) room.

It may take me another two months to complete this, but at the end, I imagine that I’ll have a good list of “what is found”–from Medieval Latin inventorium–and the pictures to prove it.

Mending Wall 6, detail, ©2012, H. Hunter, 12" x 38," watercolor, paper on panel

Dec 10

6 Comments

Winter Wisdom

“Art expression itself is a way of creating something new from what you already have, but may not have fully recognized within yourself.” Cathy Malchiodi

The other day I received a newsletter from my art therapist friend Lisa Mitchell.

She’s constructed a new series of workshops, including a vision board* workshop–and not just any old vision board workshop. Her descriptions note that, by using ordinary materials in unusual ways and learning new techniques, our intentions are solidified. In the process, our brain gets a workout using all our senses. The point is to bring our abstract ideas and dreams into the realm of the concrete and plausible, by incorporating them into the board.

That got me thinking about my own vision board, which I wrote about in a post, “Mindfulness at Play,” at the beginning of the year. I decided to go back to the board and see what has come to pass.

As I look at the board, I see a large, peaceful Buddha’s head framed by conifers and plants that remind me of our winter foliage here in California. Underneath the Buddha, from left to right, children hold a board filled with artist trading cards. To the right of the children a yoga class takes place. A teacher is helping a student with a pose.

In my post, I said that I wanted to deepen my art therapy practice; to become more present with the children, even as my own are grown. And I wanted, although I didn’t write it, to have a steady yoga practice.

What’s odd is that both of these desires have come to pass, but not by deliberate intention. The vision board hung on my studio wall, where it watched over me and I looked at it, day after day, while a year passed.

It has not been a straight path back to yoga–(is it ever?) Like Goldilocks, first I sampled the “big bowl,” a class at our University gym. I was the oldest participant and the class, a Viniyasa practice, and I felt like I’d just had an aerobic workout, not a yoga class.

Next, for my “middle size bowl,” I tried a class offered through our hospital. The instructor offered peacefulness with a pale green scented candle. I ended up with a migraine.

Finally, for a bowl that is just right. The solution came in an unexpected fashion. Both my daughter and my sister have recently been diagnosed with auto-immune diseases that make certain movements difficult.

I remembered yet another yoga class I’d taken the previous year for people 55 and over. Led by the fearless and inimitable, Hana Raftery, majoring in exercise physiology, she had every one of us, from me to the oldest 80- something moving with ease.

I e-mailed her and set up a private lesson for my daughter and me. I invited my sister, who suggested we have it in her new house, which has a wooden floor, but would be empty for another month. Shazaam! A yoga studio!

Downward dog pose

We began by meeting once a week and now have increased it to 2 times. We’ve been meeting since before Thanksgiving and even though the two of them are still waiting for their respective rheumatology consults, their movements are coming more easily.

I am in hog heaven, if you can say that about a yoga class. I feel like I really have found the bowl that is “just right.” And it all started with a small 8.5 x 11 vision board.

I’m looking forward to making my 2013 vision board soon and I invite you to join me and make your own. Who knows, those dreams might just be waiting for an invitation to come out and play!

*A vision board is usually a piece of matte board on which you paste or collage images that you’ve torn out from various magazines. The intention behind the vision boards is the notion that when you surround your self with images of what you want to develop or change, your life changes to fit the images.

Nov 26

10 Comments

Phase Transition*

Yesterday I had the strange honor of sitting beside a beautiful young woman who was literally pulling her hair out. I didn’t understand what was happening at first. I was getting to know her and she was getting to know me, as well as what I do in the hospital. We spoke of her illness, of the fact that her hair was falling out (she didn’t want it shaved), of the cartoons playing on the television. The entire time we talked, she pulled at strands of her hair, twirling small bits, and calmly yanked them out, putting them carefully on the coverlet.

By the time I left the room, she had tucked a considerable amount of what had once covered her head into a plastic sandwich bag for safekeeping.

It was one of those scenes that goes in so deep, I wanted to run away and cry. I had an art group to facilitate, so instead, I went back to my office and stared at the wall of orderly art supplies, the bottles and tubes of color lining the shelves bringing me comfort.

I’ve been thinking a lot about repair; how to reconstitute myself after being torn in so many different directions all day long. Inspired by comments on this blog, from my family and local friends, I’ve been thinking about my art work, it’s purpose and relation to the art therapy.

I’m always trying to find a “balance”–somehow comprehend the relationship of making art to practicing art therapy, but both are subtle practices and too mysterious to hold onto all at once. Instead, I’ve begun to think of the two as intertwined, a kind of ongoing tapestry, in which each activity informs the texture and direction of the other.

Tapestry weave in polychrome wool on un-dyed linen, possibly Egyptian, collection of the Louvre

Since trying this approach, I’ve felt more relaxed and present (that ever present word : “present”!)

I’ve found myself describing my art work as a way to restore a sense of calm amidst the overwhelming flux surrounding me. I’ve often thought of art making and art therapy as forms of Tikkun O’lam, a Jewish phrase that means “repair of the world.” What I’ve most recently come to appreciate again, is that while practicing both arts, I am repairing myself too! (Well, heck, I knew that, but I guess it’s just on a deeper level this time!)

I’ve continued to adapt patchwork quilting to paper and instead of putting diverse fabrics together to form a beautiful pattern, I take sections and bits of paintings along with pieces of collected paper and put them together into patterns–with the patterns signifying more than the surface beauty. They attempt to fuse the variety of experience together into a whole. The process of the work is soothing and at the same time frustrating. I paint, cut out a square, cover a small area and then immediately tear off other areas of the work, then repeat the whole process again.

It’s stretching me, this work, not letting me become complacent. Each new section has its own internal direction but is also patient, waiting quietly for me to discover what it is and turn to it–again and again.

* A “phase transition” is the process by which matter transforms via a thermodynamic system from one phase or state of matter to another.

Oct 22

11 Comments

Taking My Own Words to Heart

Detail from a tryptych in progress, Each panel 12″ x 12,” Collage on hardboard panel

I grew up and found my purpose and it was to be a physician. My intent wasn’t to save the world as much as to heal myself. Few doctors will admit this…but subconsciously, in entering the profession, we must believe that ministering others will heal our woundedness. And it can. But it can also deepen the wounds.

Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

There are times when life becomes a heavy load–patients, tasks, family issues. I was trying to keep myself glued together as various parts threatened to swirl off, so many fall leaves sucked into the wind and I was stuck in the studio. Odd, because lately the studio was the only place where I wanted to be– and suddenly, I wasn’t comfortable there.

I was going through the motions of art making, pushing pieces of paper together for my collages, fitting them like so many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but where was my intention, the focus that brings everything together?

Detail from a tryptych in progress. Each panel 12″ x 12,” Collage on hardboard panel

What to do?

How to open my heart? As I sat thinking, I remembered 6 Degrees of Creativity 2. Several people had written about major life transitions they were experiencing. They said that it was difficult to find time and energy to engage in the prompts I’d written for Creating a Mindful Studio Practice.

I urged them to take the prompts slowly; to divide one directive into smaller, more manageable steps. Their responses were heartwarming; I was honored that they were able to take something from what I’d written and apply it to their lives.

Notes on “Repair,” along with some small squares with more notes.

Once you’ve chosen a theme/object, write down everything that comes to mind about it, every perspective that you can come up with. DON’T EDIT–USE A STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS APPROACH.

Now, take the same object or theme do it again, only this time, write down only the things that interest you about this object.

Look carefully at the two lists and ask yourself what appeals to you about the second list. What you’re going to come up with is your artist thumbprint–your slant on the world. Be mindful AND RESPECTFUL of this– it will stand you in good stead…

I took up my pen, groaning inwardly, “you mean I have to hand write this??” The odd thing was, as soon as I had my pen in hand and started to write, the grip on my heart began to ease. I took my subject: “Repair” and began to break it down.

By the time I had two lists in front of me, I was feeling whole again. It’s funny. Many artists find that sketching their ideas allows them to create an outline, a plan, a clear intent. They create an approximation of what they want to do–paint a landscape, a portrait, represent an abstract idea. I’ve always written mine.

Caught up in the difficulty of the cases I was working with at the hospital, I had forgotten how important this step was.

My journal waits for me now on the work table, right up front with the watercolors and I sense where these pieces on “repair” may take me- but more importantly, I’ve rediscovered the means of writing myself back together again…

Sep 30

9 Comments

Gluebooks On The Move

Normally when we get to this time of the year, I’m thrilled. September is the month of my birth, a time when I feel most comfortable in my skin. The leaves are beginning to yellow and the brilliant light of the Central Valley is edged with a hint of shadows to come.

While the weather lived up to it’s reputation, September brought a greater than normal share of challenges. I’m pleased to say that while I did my share of “pre-whining,” (a phrase my sister coined for crossing “troubled waters” before you reach them) I met each one fairly and squarely, but with little time for the studio.

Artist’s Tour Book, 2 page spread, 8″ x 13,” Kraft paper, glue, images

Little time, that is, until a barking good case of bronchitis laid me up for a week. While I was there, I decided to explore Gretchen Miller’s workshop, Gluebook Goodness, a part of 6 Degrees of Creativity 2. (I figured I could work on it in bed!)

I loved watching Gretchen’s hands at work in her video, adding images, words and smudged ink around the edges. I was particularly touched by her encouragement to “dedicate” our gluebooks to particular topics. In her hands, I watched ordinary effluvia such as receipts, tickets and tokens become the diaries of days filled with meaning.

But to what would I dedicate myself and my book? I hunted out receipts and notes around the house, but aside from one that my husband left saying: “Hallie’s had hers / Dishwasher mostly emptied” I didn’t find any special meanings.

My answer arrived in the form of a Sunday New York Times that my mom dropped off at my house. It just so happened that this was the issue in which the NY Times Arts section listed all the upcoming exhibits for 2013. I turned to a page filled with Arabic script and saw the words “Crossing Borders: Manuscripts from the Bodleian Libraries.”

Islamic Decorative Motifs from “Crossing Borders,” The Jewish Museum, NY

Eureka! My book would be a tour of all of the exhibits around the country that I want to visit next year. I don’t know if I’ll get to all of them, but here’s a partial list with bonus images:

Crossing Borders: Manuscripts From the Bodleian Libraries at the Jewish Museum, NY, NY (Check out the link above for some fabulous photographs.)

Jasper Johns: Seeing With the Mind’s Eye: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Girl With A Pearl Earring: Dutch Paintings from Mauritshuis: DeYoung Museum, San Francisco

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring (detail), c.1665. Oil on canvas, 44.5 x 39 cm

Gravity and Grace: Monumental works by El Anatsui, Brooklyn Museum, NY

El Anatsui (Ghanaian, born 1944). Earth’s Skin, 2009. Aluminum and copper wire, 177 x 394 in. (449.6 x 1000.8 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Photo by Joe Levack, Courtesy of the Akron Art Museum

I’m curious–what exhibits are on your “must see” list this art season?

Sep 4

8 Comments

Altering an Image

Many years ago in graduate school when Polaroids still existed and the magic of images appearing before your eyes was still new, I enjoyed taking small photos of the sculptures I’d made and altering them with thick, gooey oil pastels–the kind that were an inch wide and 4 inches long and smeared like lipstick.

I savored the challenge of wielding a big stick in a small space-it was a means of gaining control over the uncontrollable. Graduate school was a place where hardball was the rule. Working on these small and intimate scenes returned me to a more comfortable place.

Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to revisit photo altering in the Altered Image, one of the workshops in 6 Degrees of Creativity 2 taught by Fiona Fitzpatrick, an Australian art therapist. For my project, I chose a photograph my father had emailed to me several weeks ago. In the photo, my father, a young professor, crosses his arms with a roll of papers in his hand. His gaze is expectant, searching, as if looking into the future, wondering what it might bring–and a bit apprehensive at the thought.

As a child, I knew that my dad longed to write. He was an English professor at a Big 10 university, always busy with his classes and busy too, writing the texts from which he taught, but I knew that what he really wanted to do was to write essays. Essays were his favorite form of prose.

Of course, things got in his way as things always do. I remember wondering if he would achieve his dream and being ignorant of the pleasures of retirement, I feared he might not find the time.

As I held the photograph, I remembered all this–and the recognition of all that has taken place since his retirement. My dad, Carl Klaus, is 80. He has written 6 books since retirement, his Mac on fire with all that he stored up to say. It was this blossoming of words that I wanted to express as I altered the image of the writer as a younger man.

I wanted to take that figure and surround him with the fruits of his labor; fruits that he couldn’t possibly see from his perspective in time, but that certainly, in due time, were his to harvest.

I took postcards announcing the publication of two of his early books and cut them into slices, encircling him so that he appears to be at the center of an illuminated manuscript. I tucked a picture of Kate, his second wife, into the corner. Her death became the subject of another book: Letters to Kate.

As I glued, painted and pressed papers onto the surface, I was transported by the process of juxtaposing past with present in the same picture.

I took a break in the middle of the process and checked my e-mail. There was an e-mail from my dad. While I’d been working on his collage, he’d typed a message: “…the attachment is the manuscript for my new book, which I just finished yesterday afternoon…I thought you might be interested… on the chance that it might give you some ideas you can use in the writing you do for your blog, for your art, for your professional work, for your personal satisfaction.

Mysterious, isn’t it, how altering an image can affect your life in an unexpected way?

Aug 28

7 Comments

Take 2: Palliative Care and Paper Swaps (The Whole Story)

Paper Offering for Missouri Artist, Alies

Our pediatric department is beginning a pediatric palliative care team and as we lay the groundwork, we’re introducing the idea of integrative therapies to our pediatricians.

It’s not a new idea. My colleague Kathy Lorenzato, a music therapist, has been teaching and practicing Reiki, a hands-on healing technique, for over 10 years, and I have joined her for the last 4 years. As far as integrative therapies go inside the hospital, at the moment, we’re it.

With this in mind, the two of us were invited to speak to our pediatric physicians on staff about art therapy, music therapy and Reiki. I made a PowerPoint to explain the use of art in palliative care and put together a resource list on other integrative therapies.

It sounds simple on the surface, but as my husband noted, trying to explain the value of therapies whose effects cannot be quantified, to a group of science oriented folks, made me more than a bit nervous.

That’s where my own art therapy came into play. Over the last couple of weeks, I participated in a Paper Swap organized by Gretchen Miller of 6 Degrees 2. I mailed my offering to an artist living in Missouri and looked forward to receiving an envelope of my own in return.

Days passed while I worked on the PowerPoint and my anxiety rose accordingly. Raised in a family with a healthy number of doctors, I’ve had some run ins with scientific minds and I’ve always felt myself lacking. Although art therapy requires a certain amount of intellectual engagement, I depend more heavily on my intuition, letting passion do the heavy lifting.

One day last week at the peak of my fear, a large padded envelope arrived, postmarked Australia. I opened it carefully and sifted through the contents; feathery tissue, textured rice papers, leaves of patterned scrapbooking pages and a packet of gaily colored buttons.

A tantalizing package from Beth in Australia

I considered the colors and shapes sitting on my lap and something shifted internally. As I touched the papers, taking in the colors, patterns and textures, my fear eased. I realized that “right here, right now” on my couch I was experiencing the tangible results of art therapy.

I went into the presentation 2 days later with an insight. Rather than seeing the doctors as a group of individuals whose opinions I wanted to change, I saw an opportunity to heal the split between my own thinking and feeling, between the intellectual and the artistic.

I stood on the podium, praying the memory stick and my own memory would work. As I looked at the slide of a patient’s artwork projected behind me, I remembered the joy I felt working with him–but I also remembered the research, the effort that others had gone to, in order to document the effectiveness of art therapy. Research that is necessary for art therapy to be accepted into the treatment team’s fold.

The presentation went well. The physicians were attentive, and even better, I felt the old split inside me being carefully drawn back together. When our talk ended, we gave a Reiki demonstration. Up there on the dais, Kathy, one of the pediatric residents, our Child Psychiatrist and I offered Reiki treatments to four doctors who came forward. I felt the tide beginning to turn.

Textile and Paper Collage

Posts from the ‘artmaking’ Category

Blogsence*

Staying Open…in the Studio

Opening a Studio

The Power of Inventory

Winter Wisdom

Phase Transition*

Taking My Own Words to Heart

Gluebooks On The Move

Altering an Image

Take 2: Palliative Care and Paper Swaps (The Whole Story)

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