CAMERON ANNE MASON

Foster/White Gallery
April 7-30, 2011

Our lightest touch affects the land, and the land in turn inhabits us. Soil under our fingernails and rain in our hair, we reach our faces up to the sun when it breaks through the clouds. The cycles of sowing and reaping sustain us as we work in balance with the Earth.

My artwork interprets natural forms and textures through the lens of culture, a culture that is built on our agrarian past. In my new series, Blades and Cotyledons, I delve deeper into shape and surface, finding richness in a narrow groove.

The Blades series explores shape as a metaphor for human interaction with the natural world. Obsidian, fractured into faceted shards from solid stone, creates a sharp, cutting edge. Hoes till and reap. We can focus on a single blade of grass in the expanse of a field for just a moment before it is lost among the many.

The Cotyledons series examines the energy of growth as it bursts forth from the stasis of the contained seed. Shaken from a packet and pushed into damp soil by a child’s finger or planted by the million by an industrial agribusiness, the seed is an essential building block of culture. A fragile miracle of nature, the seed sprouts and feeds the hungry.

Three practices come together to form my work: Sculpting, surface design, and stitch. Drawings become maquettes become patterns. Fabric is dyed, over-dyed, discharged, resisted, printed. Panels are free-motion embroidered by machine and hand-stitched into their final shapes. I am invested in process: Exploring, teaching, documenting, writing, and making.

Soundsuit performers waiting to go on

I’m playing a bit of catch up here on the blog. Who would think that some of my busiest time would be after I’ve finished and delivered the art? I’ve been working on a tuneup of the website, taught an intensive this last weekend at Pratt with Larry Calkins, sending out notices for Thursday’s opening, and working on my presentation for Saturday’s Artist Talk at the gallery.

I did take a day off last Wednesday and saw some art. This is an amazing time for fiber art in Seattle. Local galleries are showing more fiber in the last few months: Rachel Brumer’s show last month at Grover/Thurston, a show of surface design by Amy Johnson at Fetherston, Catherine Person has been showing fiber sculpture and will be showing embroidery by Maura Donegan in April, and then there’s my show at Foster/White opening this week. And two of the major museums currently have big fiber exhibits. I went to both the Seattle Art Museum to see the Nick Cave exhibit and to the Frye Art Museum to see the Degenerate Art Ensemble show. Wow! Both shows were really great.

Click the links here to find out more about the exhibits.

Nick Cave, Meet Me at the Center of the Earth at the Seattle Art Museum through June 5, 2011

Degenerate Art Ensemble at the Frye Art Museum through June 19, 2011

Pam McClusky, curator of African Art and Textiles at SAM, has done a great job curating and displaying Nick Cave’s show, Meet Me at the Center of the Earth. I’m a big fan of Cave’s work, Nick Cave the artist not the Australian pop-star. I have a copy of the catalog, Meet Me at the Center of the Earth, from when the show was originally mounted at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. I also got to meet the artist last year when he was here in advance of the show to talk about ways to engage the community during the SAM show. A lot of what we all brainstormed didn’t happen, budget woes is my guess, but the Museum has been working with Cornish College and Spectrum Dance Company to stage “Invasions” of dancers performing in some of the suits. I got a chance to see one of the Invasions at the Museum performing along with Orkestar Zirconium the week the show opened. Even after seeing a lot of video footage of the suits it was amazing to see them moving in real life/real time/three feet away. It was incredibly exciting. My cheeks hurt from smiling and my chest felt full from joy. When I talked about it later the word that came to me was “ecstatic”. I took some video with my trusty little Canon PowerShot but so far, I haven’t been able to figure out how to upload it here. So in the meantime, here are a couple links to some professional Nick Cave footage.

Nick Cave-Art in Motion

Nick Cave-Perspective

I like the exhibit quite a bit and I have been hearing from people not familiar with his work that it has blown quite a few minds. It is a large exhibit and very inpressive in both the large scale of the figures and the amount of detail in each one. My only complaint is that the figures are so static. They are made to move and although it’s more alive than seeing them on the pages of a book, it feels as though you’re only seeing half of the picture. There is a room with very nice video projections that gives a sense of their dynamic possibilities but in the time I was there I didn’t see any video I hadn’t seen before on the web. I wanted to see video of every suit so that you could look at it still then press a button and see a small video screen of that suit moving. That would have been amazing. Still, half the picture is much better than nothing and the suits have a presence that fills the room, five rooms actually. So get down there if you have the chance. There’s nothing like seeing it in person.

The other exhibit I saw that day was the Degenerate Art Ensemble. Wow again! This show rocked my socks even more than the Cave exhibit, mostly because I was unfamiliar with their work. They are a collaborative performing group combining dance, theater, innovative costumes/sculpture, and music. The exhibit is sparse but impressive, showing set pieces and costumes in combination with video projection and audio. I found it beautiful and eerie and the DAE will be mounting a performance of the Red Shoes in conjunction with the exhibit. A nice thing about the Frye is that admission is free!

Today was a big day. Today I took the last stitches in the last piece for Soft Earth, my April Foster/White show. It’s been five months of concentrated work: planning, forming, dyeing, stitching. I’ve been pretty hard on myself (and my family, too) but now I’ve got twenty-one new pieces, thirteen Blades and eight Cotyledons. That averages out to about a piece per week! A good bit of work I’d say.

The other big thing that happened today was a studio visit from Marci McDade, the editor of Fiberarts. We’ve been in touch recently because I’m going to write an article about the workshop I’m teaching next week with Larry Calkins. I was really excited about her coming because, well, she’s the editor of Fiberarts! And because I feel really good about my work and in a good place to share it.

Marci was like a curious honeybee visiting every flower in the studio. She was drawn to  my stash of fabrics, petting the velvets and full of questions about technique and concept. We talked about the magazine and staying relevant in the changing world of fiber. We talked about process and journaling and maybe putting together an article for the magazine on blogging. We talked about balancing parenting with work. We talked about good places to eat while she’s in Seattle. And all the while she was taking photos of everything, arranging them in still lifes, standing on a stool so she could get a better shot, and having me hold up drawings and fabric.

It’s really great when someone who holds a place of power in the art world is so accessible. Curators, gallery owners, magazine editors, they’re all people like you and me. They have knowledge, for sure, and they have influence but there’s no point in being afraid to talk to them. You might make a new friend.

Cotyledon 5 in progress

I’m not a religious person so when I’m talking about faith, it’s faith in my creativity and ability. Sometimes faith requires taking big steps at the edge of a cliff and sometimes it’s only baby steps along a stitched line. Sometimes taking even those baby steps can require a giant amount of bravery. I have to trust my intuition, have faith in that undefinable place where the ideas come from when I’m making all those big and small decisions that lead up to a finished piece of art.

These last few weeks have required more than the usual amount of bravery. My daughter has been my studio companion lately as she has been recovering from a really difficult period of persistent headaches. She is finally feeling better and at school for the first time in two weeks. It’s been difficult to watch my little one deal with chronic pain and not be able to fix it.

I guess that’s where we have to lean on faith. And sometimes I wish I was a religious person because it seems it would give a focus to that feeling of giving up one’s trust to something or someone that is invisible and undefinable. It would be reassuring that while I’m doing my part here, there is a higher power looking out; to have faith be Faith.

If you haven’t seen Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk, Nurturing Creativity, it’s really worth watching. She posits that there is a creative energy, a “genius” that comes from outside of ourselves when we are in the act of creating. That our job as artists, is to show up and consistently do our work, so that we are available to funnel this genius when it comes through us.

This idea of the “genius”  is the closest thing I can think of to describing the way it feels when I work. That if I keep doing my part, the showing up and putting in the hours, I can trust that all of those decisions are leading somewhere. Somewhere in my head there is a vision of the finished piece and all I have to do is find the path to its completion.

Sometimes that faith is harder to find than others and I have to remember, baby steps.

Cotyledon 5 detail

I’m just about finished picking fabrics for the Cotyledons. Progress is being made. I’ve had a sick kid this week. That was not on the schedule. But I’m doing my best to keep working. Yesterday, hubbie worked at home so I could be at the studio. Today I’m working at home.

Above is my studio table in the midst of “auditioning” fabrics. Below are the final fabric choices. Just have a little overdyeing to do to tone down some white backgrounds. The amazing thing, and the only reason I may actually get these pieces done for the show, is that I’ve taken all the fabrics from my stash. And, even more amazing, is how much fabric I still have left!

Cotyledon bases

I had a good day at the studio. It was Sunday, still is actually, and my family spent the day skiing. This gave me a weekend day to spend at the studio and not feel guilty. I’m working all the time now. The days until my show are dwindling and I’ve still got a lot I want to get finished. Really only 20 or so days until I should have all the art delivered. Okay, I’m going to go breathe into a paper bag now.

Phew. I’m back. Can I really finish eight pieces in 20 days? I guess we’ll find out. I’m making good progress. I’ve got all of the bases for the Cotyledons basted together and initial fabrics selected for half of them. I’m getting both more efficient and more confident and taking less time making decisions.

Then there are these other pesky demands on my time: mailing list, tweaking web site, Powerpoint presentation on Tuesday for Elder Hostel, a proposal to teach for next Spring’s SDA/SAQA conference . . . oh yeah, and my kids and husband. Good thing I love what I do.

initial fabric selections

detail of Blade Three: Cell

Tonight is the first Thursday Art Walk in Pioneer Square downtown Seattle. Foster/White Gallery will be previewing some of my work for next month’s show, Soft Earth. Stop by if you get a chance!

This is a photo of my box of scraps. I love the texture and the randomness of the way they fall. Perhaps I should put a title on it and put it in the the show.

All of this . . .

and this . . .

One thing that’s been taking up a lot of my time, time I really don’t have to spare these days, is packing for my upcoming trip to the 2011 Rio Patchwork Design Show in June.

But this kind of packing does not include a swimsuit. Because I won the Audience Choice Award at last year’s show I will be traveling to Rio to present at this year’s show. And as part of my free trip to South America I became responsible for shipping the art for the CQA portion of the show to New York on the first leg of its journey. That’s sixty-six pieces of art from twenty-two artists. This has involved a lot of emailing, record keeping, and arranging for two enormous crates to be built and packed.

But it’s all done! The crates shipped yesterday leaving me with a lot more physical space in my house and mental space in my head. Bon Voyage!

into crate number one

and crate number two

Easelstan Studio and my relationships with the other artists there has had a huge impact on the development of my artwork. The space is like a blank canvas, ready to reflect back what I put into it. My studio-mates sustain me, providing honest feedback and encouragement to take risks.

My work is informed by surface design on fabric. I begin with white natural fiber cloth which is dyed, overdyed, discharged, resisted, printed. Form and stitch are equally essential elements in the final artwork. Each piece in Easelstan 5 @ 10 represents a transition in my work over the last decade.

The earliest work here, postCARDS: 52 weeks, 52 cards, was created in 2006. The postcard quilts are sketches on a theme, each composition an amalgam of materials, techniques, and experiences. The playing cards provide rich inspiration for design and color as well as the structure for the series, a full deck in 52 weeks. The small format encourages experimentation with surface design and quilting techniques, and is also a yearlong journal in images and words traveling through the mail both away from and back to me.

Epithelium, Coral Vessel, and Discharge Vessel, 2008, show my deepening explorations into surface design: Binding, stripping away, and rebuilding. The pieces, pushing into three dimensions, are some of the first I constructed using  sculptural techniques I developed. Organic shapes suggest the natural world and become forms with a cultural meaning.

Earth Forms, 2009, and Artifacts, 2010 are from a body of work inspired by the landscape that surrounds us and the touch of human hands upon it. Each form is a document of the passage of time. The Earth Forms are a direct response to my experience of nature. The Artifacts interpret natural forms and textures through the lens of culture.

Can I Help You? is part of a larger installation, The Act of Becoming, from 2009. The figure is used to explore that which is seen and that which is kept close to the skin. The Waitress, the Mother, the Lover: all of these roles play a part in a woman’s life, fragmentary and coexisting.

The newest work, Grasses, extrapolates on the idea of the quilt. It is a beginning, featuring the print on fabric as a stand alone element and emphasizing it with stitch. Grasses shows my continuing interest in natural forms and textures contextualized through our agrarian past. We can focus on a single blade of grass in the expanse of a field for just a moment before it is lost among the many. The cycles of sowing and reaping sustain us as we work in balance with the Earth.

Each work in this show is a snapshot of my development as an artist, from the refining of my craft to the leap from two dimensions into three. So much of our work as artists is mundane, putting in the hours at the studio so that we are there, ready, when inspiration strikes. Easelstan has provided a place where Anna, Paul, Pam, Anne, and I can do that work. We come together in our daily meditations and experimentations, learn from each other, and share our trials and successes. When Anne moved to Los Angeles this Fall it was a loss to our small community. We miss her greatly, but working together on this anniversary show has brought the four of us closer. Looking into the past gives us a chance to reflect and reassess our work, ready for the next ten years.