On the drive back home I was rolling over whether the eye trains the hands or the hands train the eye for visual artists. My approaches vary on how I create and I think the hand and eye are interdependent in informing the image. September time in the studio has been given to freedom and exploration and play. As I've experimented with marbling and returned to mark making with thickened dye with no expectations of outcome, images for future quilts begin to form...so in that case, it is the hand that informs the eye. Other times as with the Oliver Lewis quilts, I see (or hear) something and think, 'how can I form that in a visual', which is the eye informing the hand. Like a dance, the eye and the hand.
I set-up a new "size" for marbling tomorrow. And have a cotton scarf under plastic that I stamped with dye on the print table. The Boku-Undo inks came today that Carolyn Abbott suggested I try. They float on plain water without the need to mix in the carageenan. There are periods of waiting between steps for the marbling...the fabric has to air dry after soaking in the alum, the size has to sit for 12 hours before it can be used, the marbled fabric has to completely air dry after it has been marbled. I mixed up some thickened dyes as something I know I do well...sort of a resting spot between in the learning curve of marbling.
marbled fabric
Your marbled piece is gorgeous. I love it. But, there's one thing I've gotta say" you think too much for me". I'm a lazy artist and don't like to think. I just do whatever I feel like doing and go from there. I admire that in you though.
ReplyDeleteHAHA, When I was a teenager, I had a cousin who told me the same thing when it came to music...said I analyzed to much about it and I should just listen to it. So I guest I've been this way for a long while....but Carol, sometimes I get on my own nerves because I can't shut my brain off sometimes.
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