joan colvin
I ran across a book called Nature's Studio by quilt artist Joan Colvin. I do not sew and I don't know how to quilt although I want to give it a try soon. But I had to get this book. Her quilts are so amazing. Breathtaking. She is a Washingtion artist and her subject matter is the Puget Sound landscape with Madrona trees, Herons, and trees, trees, trees.
In this book she discusses her techniques but also about the creative process. Here is something she wrote that I really liked and spoke to me:
"Over the years, we have gotten more appreciative of the vast number of approaches to art, and more tolerant of the diverse materials and techniques used. We invent new substances hourly and find fresh things to say, or fresh way to say old things.
Let's go back to the human impulse to collect beautiful or interesting things-colored petals, shiny rocks. Sorting, stacking, arranging, drawing with finers or toes in the sand...the heart of the creative process. Remember how it feels?
You find that you wish to share your pleasure with someone. See what I made? Isn't it beautiful? Do you understand it? Now, sharing requires preserving or re-creating- sticking the petals onto leaves with pitch, stringing the beads, chipping into stone. And many artists feel the process isn't complete until the preserving and sharing has taken place.
The first passionate part of your impulse can vary from joy and contentment to anger or angst. The second part, the sharing, involves endless variety in engineering to get your art ready to show. So really, finding your voice is reaching some sort of balance between the passion to make something and the technical requirements of doing so.
What makes this all so exciting is how absolutely infinite the choices are. How intensely do you see, how deeply do you feel, how amusing or ironic is life to you, how awesome is the visible and the invisible universe? How you find your way among all this is how you speak to the world through your work. You can define yourself this way, if you wish. During the time you have alone with your work, you can make all the choices- every single one. You choose how you want to spend your time and what you want to spend it saying."
In this book she discusses her techniques but also about the creative process. Here is something she wrote that I really liked and spoke to me:
"Over the years, we have gotten more appreciative of the vast number of approaches to art, and more tolerant of the diverse materials and techniques used. We invent new substances hourly and find fresh things to say, or fresh way to say old things.
Let's go back to the human impulse to collect beautiful or interesting things-colored petals, shiny rocks. Sorting, stacking, arranging, drawing with finers or toes in the sand...the heart of the creative process. Remember how it feels?
You find that you wish to share your pleasure with someone. See what I made? Isn't it beautiful? Do you understand it? Now, sharing requires preserving or re-creating- sticking the petals onto leaves with pitch, stringing the beads, chipping into stone. And many artists feel the process isn't complete until the preserving and sharing has taken place.
The first passionate part of your impulse can vary from joy and contentment to anger or angst. The second part, the sharing, involves endless variety in engineering to get your art ready to show. So really, finding your voice is reaching some sort of balance between the passion to make something and the technical requirements of doing so.
What makes this all so exciting is how absolutely infinite the choices are. How intensely do you see, how deeply do you feel, how amusing or ironic is life to you, how awesome is the visible and the invisible universe? How you find your way among all this is how you speak to the world through your work. You can define yourself this way, if you wish. During the time you have alone with your work, you can make all the choices- every single one. You choose how you want to spend your time and what you want to spend it saying."