I know I’m a bit of a purist.
I am a multi-disciplinary artist, but I am not a mixed media artist.
I like my drawings to be pencil OR ink, not both together. If I use watercolour with my drawings, it’s generally laid down as a ground to draw on, not often as an element in itself.
I like my fabric work to be limited in a similar way too these days. Single stitch types, on waste fabric pieces. I have rules.
I don’t like overcrowded songs either…
I’m making vessels and twigs at the moment, in a variety of media. The brown paper twigs are placed in brown paper vessels/bags. They are bound with one sort of bleached cotton or linen thread. I have done black twigs with black thread, white with white, but if I try a different colour I’m unhappy with it.
I thought I’d give it a try with the spools of red thread I bought back from Sweden. Now… in terms of semiotics, red thread has different cultural connotations and the field is crowded with meanings I don’t want, so having bound one brown paper twig with red, I don’t really like it. If I had some red waste paper I’d try red on red to see if that makes it different. I think it would. Would I then feel obliged to try different coloured paper with matching bindings? Then I’d have a rainbow of twigs which I’m sure would look very twee, and also hold extra rainbow-associated meanings!
In my ceramics class at mac I’ve made three clay vessels, from rolled out thin slabs of clay, which are then wrapped around my hand and folded in at the bottom. This week I painted the inside with white slip, we will see how they come out of the kiln, the white may have been a step too far. I’ve started making a few clay twigs, but with a harder, rougher, groggier type of clay. I’m not sure about that either until I see them fired. I don’t think I’ll be glazing them either….
I think it’s because I need clarity. When the symbolism or metaphors or semiotics are important, I don’t want variables muddying the scene.
A variable asks questions:
Why has she used different coloured paper?
Why are the vessels different materials?
Why is the clay a different texture?
If the twigs represent children, they are unique as they stand, as I make them. If I want them to be unique in more than one direction, is that confusing?
