Blog Hop

This post should have been up on the 20th, but something went wrong, I had prepared it and was offline for several days:

I have been invited by my friend Frauke Schramm to participate in a blog hop. That includes answering four questions about my art, and nominating three other people to continue the hop. Frauke published her post about the questions last Saturday, it is my turn today, and my three nominees should have their posts ready by next Saturday.

These are my answers to the questions:

 1.) What am I working on/writing?

These days I am in the finishing processes for the last pieces that will be part of a three-person-show in October, in the UNESCO World Heritage Site Fagus Works, the first building that Walter Gropius planned and built after setting up as an architect, before he later went on to found the Bauhaus School. The other two artists exhibiting are Mary Schliestedt and Gabi-Julia Weimer. The exhibition has the title “Inspiration Bauhaus”, and I have been working towards this deadline for over a year now. As much as I have enjoyed focussing on this topic, and working in a rather geometric set of mind for a while, I am very much looking forward to this opening, as I hope that after that I will be able to work in other directions for a while. So many different ideas have been coming to me recently which mostly I could not follow up because the show was still looming on the horizon...

Then, I plan to return to a few more ideas that will be part of my earlier series “Play of Lines”, and I also have several projects in the backdrop that will be part of a newly developing series, “text messages”.

Shapes 21, 12"x12"

2.) How does my work/writing differ from others of its genre?

I’m not sure whether it is on me to describe how my work differs from others – or whether this would have to be done from an outsider’s perspective. I certainly hope that I have developed my own voice, and that my work has it’s unique style that is recognizably mine. Due to the fact that everybody is constantly being influenced by the world around them, however, exactly that ‘own voice’ is one of the most difficult parts of making art, I think. A constant process of re-evaluation, permanent self-questioning and ongoing exciting and inspiring search! I don’t feel as if I have come to a point where I could put it all at rest. Which keeps me going, curious for whatever idea might linger just around that next corner. 

3.) Why do I do what I do?

A constant need to be ‘making things’ with my hands had been with me all my life, and turned into a serious occupation with textile art at a critical phase in my life. In the manner of addiction, I need to be working with fabrics, and I have an urge to express myself in this medium on a different level than ‘only’ traditional patchwork patterns. As much as I like seeing them in well-made antique quilts, the necessary mode of expression for me was in contemporary, self-designed art quilts. I dye my own fabrics, and use them exclusively, which gives my quilts a special colorization. Making, handling, and then piecing the fabrics into a finished piece are the different stages of a complete process, which gives a special kind of satisfaction. And the greatest joy after making them is when somebody decides that they like this piece well enough to put it up on their wall for them to look at regularly.

4.) How does my writing/working process work?

I have different processes, that may either be employed entirely separately, or in combination.

As the title of the exhibition “Inspiration Bauhaus” suggests, the pieces on display in October have been created with orientation to letting myself be inspired by Bauhaus philosophy. I had decided that I would not look at the famous Bauhaus artists’ work as inspiration, but rather chose to let myself be influenced by the clear geometric forms, and the colors used to represent them, and then see where my own work would take me from there.

With my series “Play of Lines”, I was originally inspired by line drawings of my son, then aged 2 ½ and 3, and have included other linear inspirations in later stages of the series. The relatively young series “Text messages”, of course, always has a text or some textual aspect as inspiration through which I want to express something, or want the viewer to experience a special text in a new manner.

Sometimes it has happened that I had a special piece of fabric which desperately called to be me to work with it, and have gone from there.

Thank you, Frauke, for inviting me to participate. It has indeed been an interesting process to actually put into words things I have been thinking about my mode of working.

And these are my three nominees:

1. Jim Martin

I first met Jim, an American now living in Stuttgart, Germany, during my studies at the university of Freiburg. 

We shared common interests in Music and English Literature, and I always liked talking to him before class, at the cafeteria or somewhere in the halls. He got married to a good friend of my best friend, and she kept me vaguely informed about Jim and Bianca's whereabouts. We got back in touch via facebook a few years ago, and I have been following his blog on his photography and writing/texts for a while. 

Jim has just had an exhibition in Freiburg, and I hope will have more, soon. His blog is called "Jim's Photoblog", and I am certain you will enjoy looking at it or even following it.

2. Kathleen Loomis

Kathleen Loomis has been a good friend since we first met at a Master Class workshop at Nancy Crow's Barn, back in 2008.

When I saw her show one of her postage quilts to another participant at the workshop - not this one, but a green one -

Kathleen Loomis, Spaghetti Sauce

I was stunned. And a bit worried about her state of mind. The latter soon changed, as we started a regular e-mail exchange on machine quilting, became partners in daily art projects, have spent a vaction together on the Outer Banks Islands in North Carolina, and she has come to visit me in Germany. I am even now the proud owner of one of her postage stamp quilts. Kathleen makes quilts, but has done some other fabulous art work in paper, photo, junk art, and other areas. (I keep trying to get her to start doing something with the dumpsters she photographs, but she has been rather resilient about that so far.)
Her blog art with a needle is the blog where she writes about art, and is THE blog on top of my list. On her blog Kathy's Daily Art she posts pictures of her current Daily Art projects, and here she does not want to have any text. So basically I am cheating a bit, as I am recommending two blogs by one nominee - Kathy will post her answers to the questions on art with a needle. But I strongly suggest that you take a look at the Daily Art!

3. Yasmin Sabur

Yasmin Sabur is the one of the three nominees whom I have not met personally, and I have been following her blog/facebook entries for only a few months now. 

She makes wearable art, prints fantastic fabrics, and whenever I see a new picture of her work, I start drooling...

Her blog is still relatively new on my reading list, but has been an interesting addition, especially in combination with her posts on facebook.

I hope you all will enjoy looking at these blogs - and don't forget to check out what Frauke's other two nominees had on their mind!