Art Defined in Textile

I love the southwestern Native American textiles. The blankets, weaving patterns of brilliant color into geometrical designs are incredibly beautiful. In the Northwest, Pendleton Woolen Mills produces woolen blankets with fabulous designs and color.  Another art form… 
The southwestern weavings are incredible…some of subtle shades of grays with perhaps red or a muted turquoise; others brilliant in color. The process of hand weaving is so very time consuming. It is with pride that these artists display their work at the Indian Fairs and Markets.

 

Twenty + years ago I was working in the Denver area and had the opportunity to go to the Indian Market that was held at a stadium in Boulder. It was a festival of Native American Art with the rugs and blankets hanging throughout the show.   It was beautiful in the display of colors and craftsmanship.

I have a few pieces, a couple of small rugs, a Pendleton blanket that serves as a bedspread in a guest room. I guess what I love about these pieces is the use of color…they are bright, lots of colors and it doesn’t matter what the “seasonal” colors are in the fashion world…these pieces use the basics of color to play one off the other…just like a color wheel.  It’s all art.

Arts or Crafts???

A few years ago a group of artists in my area got together and decided to form an art group of “fine” artists.  Well, everyone was a fine artist in their own right, but no one could come up with a definition of “fine art” that satisfied the entire group.  I think some of the ones that were bothered most with the critical need to define “fine arts” have since left the group and those who remain probably have a just a nice time getting together painting, crafting, creating…whatever genre they choose; fine art or not.   It’s their art!      

I think about the Native american art and some of the beautiful pottery that is done – even without a wheel to throw them on.  The sides are a smooth as glass and some of these  are made with coils of clay layers upon each other in a coil fashion, then the sides smoothed.  This is art… and in probably every sense of the word is “fine” art.  This bowl is from the late 1800’s and appears that the images were all drawn freehand and I am certain not done on a wheel.  

My Mother was a fond collector of Native American baskets and weavings.  She particularly liked pine needle baskets and at one time even made a small one.  On a trip to Wenatchee quite a few years ago she and I went out to one of hydro dams on the Columbia.  In their visitor’s center was a display of some of the most beautiful pine needle work I had seen.  It was done by a woman, local to Wenatchee.  We loved her work and ended up buying some pieces.  I gave my Mom a couple of the baskets and she cherished them.  After she passed away, I had got her baskets back and have since passed one on to my friend Carolyn who appreciates artful things and I still have a couple.  These were two of the baskets from “Joyce” of Wenatchee.  She did something that I hadn’t seen before…utilizing the base of the needles as part of the decorative effect of the basket rather than eliminating that end.

One of the weavings that Mom had was a flat reed/grass piece.  It was another thing that came my way from my mother’s estate and I honor it with a place on a wall of my dining room.  It had hung in my mom’s office where she wrote and sometimes painted.

Woolen weavings are a classic of the southwestern Native Americans and certainly are an art.  A long ago trip to the southwest was remembered with the purchase of a simple Navajo rug of about 3′ that I have always had hanging in my homes.  Subsequent trips to the Albuquerque area brought some other small rugs; but the first buy in 1975 from a trading post in AZ has always been my favorite.

So I look at these sorts of art or craft as “ART”… there is a lot of heart and time and energy and talent that is put forth to bring one of these pieces to completion.  And for lots of people creating art it isn’t about the fact that they are making a ton of money from their work…they do it for the love of the ART!…

Define Art…

Art…it’s a pretty personal deal.  My goal with this blog is to tell about something “art-like” in my world…or maybe one of my friends world.  We don’t all look at art the same way.  Thankfully!  Art can be the graffiti on the sides of freight train cars, the works of master painters, children’s projects from school, stuff you see on walks, a plate of food, a deli’s showcase, photography…So come with me on this journey.

(Jean’s wood cut images)

Art…A couple of years ago an elderly friend of mine passed away.  She was a wonderful artist who was talented in lots of mediums – watercolor, block print making, etc.  A patron of the arts, Jean was a founding member of the local Art Center and volunteered there for years.  Late in her life she brought some beautiful tiny wood block prints to the center to sell.  She said her kids had picked the ones they wanted and she had just decided to sell the rest of them.  I bought two of them and cherish them.  They hang together in my dining room in a grouping of  some small works.  Whenever I take a look at them, I fondly think of Jean, her great smile and gentle ways.  Art for her seemed to be done for purely pleasure.  She didn’t seem to care if  she made a bunch of money on her work; she did it for the pleasure of making art.

After she had passed away,  her children gathered things that they didn’t want and had a yard sale.  She had lots of interesting artifacts from around the world, but the two things that I fell in love with were two sets of wood block cuts for printing/imaging.  I am a huge fan of art stamps and have a collection that is quite extensive.  So when I saw these wooden boxes of wood blocks, I had to have them!  There is a collection of letters and numbers in different fonts, some well-worn; others hardly used.  On occasion I pick a couple and ink them up and stamp them into a project, but mostly I just take them out and look at them and remember my friend Jean…