Backtracking slowly forward

Wonderful world of images

We live in a world of images. Daily, we are confronted with an abundance of images, pictures, photos - whatever we call them. In print or digital; they're everywhere; some praise the abundance others are critical and see it as bombardment. Personally, I love this abundance.

Media wouldn't be the same without images. I scour the media for images. Different media use and present images differently and the outcome of my image search is correspondingly different. The printed press where my approach is kind of leisurely, is the place where I tend to stumble across my best finds. This gives me an uplifting feeling of surprise and luck. Like a treasure hunt. Online, however, I have to do more of an active search which involves other emotions, like impatience or frustration but also accomplishment. Tv and film offer images too, but are no good for my purpose. 

What am i searching for? People. Well composed photos. I like portraits, so what catches my eye is usually photos of people. I study them, look for poses, cropping, colours, angles; whatever I can draw on in my own portraits.

In newspapers and magazines I often come across fascinating portraits or interesting scenes with people in them. The portraits are often of such quality that I completely forget the journalistic context. Some scenes are just incredible and tell me more than the text does; like this one above. Some Hungarian women go to the European Parliamentary election dressed in national costumes while lots of other Europeans didn't even bother to vote. More than one story there!

I found the photo outstanding and cut it from a newspaper years ago. Turns out, I wasn't the only one to admire it; Time Magazine picked it as "Pictures of the week" in June 2004. The photographer is Hungarian Laszlo Balogh at Reuters. Reuters had it in their "Oddly enough" collection for sale for a while. I found more of Balogh's work on the web, but searched in vain for some info about his background. So what, his work really speaks for itself.

Here is another photo I've saved for inspiration, the cutting didn't show a signature and I recall searching in vain for the photographer's name everywhere. I believe it's from 'Times', so if anyone recognises it I'd love to hear about it.

 

The first example is cropped close in order to show what initially caught my eye. The next one I cropped to emphasise colours and shapes. The last one is untouched, as I found it, with a relevant, but disfiguring text in one corner. As my eyes scan around for people and faces I have made a habit of searching for the photographer's name as well. Not the easiest to detect, even today.

 

It doesn't help when the name is in miniscule print and sometimes it's only an agency's initials. I'm curious about the eye behind the work and it upsets me when the press uses a photo merely as icing on the journalistic cake. There are many fantastic professional photographers who's work I admire even if I don't know their name.

 

It's so easy to take their work for granted, particularly when in bad print quality like news papers. Sometimes an initially good photo put there to support a text becomes something barely noticeable. The artistic eye, the focused mind and all the work behind will too often go unnoticed, unappreciated. That's a pity. Try to present the same photos in good print in a white-walled gallery..... Then, see if we notice!     

As I said, these photos inspire me. And it seems they always have. The cutting below is a good example. I've had it since I was sixteen or so. (Click on it for full size.)                          At that age I was really into cut-outs and arranged these images carefully on a raffia wall hanging, serving as my poster board. A show off thing (I recognised that back then, as well). Show off to prove I was a sensitive and mature person; well aware of world politics and deeply engaged by all unfairness and suffering in it's wake. So there!

Not true. I wasn't the least bit engaged in anything but horses, myself, books and boys. In that order.
However, this particular clipping did mean something to me. Because of the faces. The person is Aldous Huxley. First as a child, then as a family father and finally a year before he died. Seeing them now, it occurs to me that his face through all stages personifies what I at sixteen longed to express. Namely, deep, creative and interesting thoughts and feelings.

Clearly, there must be extraordinary artists behind pictures that create such strong emotions. Strong then, when I found them and strong now that I see them again.
Unfortunately I have no recollection of where I found this photo nor the name of the journalist who put the three photos together, it's just luck that I have kept the scrap of paper for so long.
The childhood photo bears no signature, possibly it's from a family album, but a great portrait, whoever took it. So much attitude in that small, reluctant subject.
The photo in the middle is taken by Dorothy Wilding and the one of old Huxley is Ted Streshinsky's work. The old Huxley dates from 1962, California, one year before he died. So simple and so strong. One eye looks inward the other outward. (click on it for detail)

Dorothy Wilding is well represented in the National Portrait Gallery's collection on the web.(A great service, by the way). She did several Huxley portraits, I checked, but couldn't find this particular one. Take a look at another Wilding portrait of Huxley and his son from 1932. (Sorry, can't show it here, you have to use the link.) It's just so, oh, so good! Check the poses, the cropping, how the father is taller and could have been dominant, but he's standing slightly closer to the edge than the boy, so it's actually the little boy that gets the focus and holds the viewer's eye. 

Then, take a look here at a Dorothy Wilding self portrait. She was much in demand and did lot's of celebrity portraits, royalties included. But do take a close look at herself; she really was a cool something!
Ted Streshinsky was a photojournalist who also created portraits of many prominent personalities. I did a web-search but found mostly book references, no images on the web. After the Huxley portrait I would love to see more of his work.

When I have something good to share I so much want to show and tell and hope this honours the artists and justifies showing the clippings.
If anyone knows more about these three photos, or object to me showing them here, please let me know.

Stitch by stitch

A new link to Inger Johanne Rasmussen world. I wrote about her here once before. You would think once should do. I mean, she still does the same. She still uses the same technique: hand-stitched textile puzzles, same material: hand-dyed felted fabric, same size: mostly huge, same mind: utterly fascinating. I can't get enough of these carpets. So when she gave me this link to her updated website with lot’s of new work, I was lost for hours. Make sure you have plenty of time when you open the link; it’s a wonderful website.

There is something about her work that appeals to me on so many levels. Her material; felted wool is prosaic as such, but to me it speaks of winter, childhood and clever women. I remember wool was durable, often hard also warm and had unlimited potential in the hands of creative women. Her colours lift me. Her patterns, the geometrical, reassure me of piece and order and the floral; how I thrill that she shamelessly uses flowers for what they’re worth. Pure immodest beauty. To me, that’s pretty daring. Never cute, but beautiful and intriguing, as thought provoking details materialise by closer look. Inger Johanne’s carpets bring about memories I cannot recall by will.

The compositions are complex and layered. Virtually thousands of pieces of felted wool, cut and coloured are painstakingly sewn together in a perfect fit, like intarsia work. Stitch by stitch, by hand!
How doe she do this? When does she eat and sleep?
I can’t shake off a feeling of fairytale magic. Like the millers daughter in Rumpelstiltskin who spins straw into gold night after night. But the millers daughter has magic help. Inger Johanne says she loves to sew and that she is somewhat impatient throughout the process, so anticipation at the result and eagerness for the next project drives her to finish each stage. That seems to work well too.       

She makes it sound easy but this is monumental work in size and numbers. What also fascinates me and what I admire, is her unfaltering energy and incredible will to see something through. In these carpets I find a personal take on reality, a reality of rearranged fragments held together by millions of small stitches.
Uncannily close to magic.

Coolstop

Something really nice happened to me at the end of summer. I opened e-mails long overdue (finally I had found myself and my iMac a corner in the new home) and saw this message:

Hi,
I'm pleased to let you know that your site, Backtracking slowly forward, is Coolstop's Best of the Cool Daily Pick for 07/21/07. My review of your site appears on the main page of Coolstop (http://coolstop.com/) on 07/21/07 and is archived at http://coolstop.com/reviews/?seek=http://tittin.typepad.com/.   
Thanks!       Joe Jenett

Well, at first I wasn't even sure it was that nice, as I'm very sceptical of most messages with an unknown address.

But after checking it out I was speechless.
Obviously Joe Jenett who wrote the review had actually read my comments about my work!
And what's more, he had totally grasped what I've been trying to convey - it could have been myself describing what I talk about. Only he did it better than I would have.
I'm a bit ashamed that it has taken me so long to acknowledge Joe Jenett's perceptive and generous review.

I'm as curious as this guy above - I had to find out; who is Joe Jenett? I still probably don't know.

But I'm certainly glad I tried, because what I found was plenty interesting. Joe Jenett has a lot of webthings going on. It has to do with photos, with words and creativity, sharing and interaction. His own photos and words are just sublime.
The more i read, the more I'm honoured that he picked my site.

He has written tons of reviews over many years. Randomly I opened links to the reviewed sites or blogs. Everyone I opened had quality and all the reviews I read were informative, decent and made me want to go to all of these sites.
He's reviewing all sorts of art sites; photo, design, painting, dance, writing and photo, photo, photo.
Coolstop is what is says - now I've spent hours clicking on links in random reviews and all the stops have been cool.

Further, I found more cool projects under his name. Have look at these two;
The ageless Project - About how irrelevant age is for "the personal, creative side of the web". Read "Don To Earth" and see for yourself.

Colorspeak - To quote Joe Jenett: "We view the world through the web more than we ever have and colorspeak is an experiment to explore how we perceive and associate the colors of the so-called safe palette with words, sounds, people, emotions, and events in our own experience".

There is much more; :random e-motion, dailywebthings, intersect, Jenett photo, simply prsonal - click and see. Oh yes, do go to "simply personal" then click "words" and then choose "the tgif series" where you find ten poems. They touched me - they scratch on my soul. It struck me how bizarre it is that a few selected words, tightly crammed, can stir up feelings of recognition - of thoughts half expressed but never nailed.

It seems I made a mistake the other day when listing seven blogs I like - there should have been eight +........

Hands off - the design is good!

Now, try not to ruin it!

Being a designer I ought to know not to attempt at redesigning an already perfect design. As a parent I hope I have succeeded in keeping my hands off enough.

As I see it, I've created three really exceptional designs. I must admit it has been in collaboration with my husband.
I'm writing this because right now, in the beginning of March we'll celebrate the eighteenths anniversary of our first co-production - a live and kicking man cub. -  I have babied numerous ideas that made it into production. But my children are certainly the most precious creations I have nurtured.

Today our oldest, once a nameless, hairless, helpless bundle handled over to me to care for - for life I realised - thus feeling  more helpless  than the baby even looked, is taller than his dad.
(Although, I was wrong in assuming that he was nameless. It turns out that the minute his dad held him in his arms, he decided to name him after himself. But let me assure you that the next two times I was prepared and at the ready with names so we wouldn't have four Sig's in the family. Never underestimate the bonding moment between fathers and babies!).

Today, the dad already a tall man, will be kissed upon the forehead by his, at times, affectionate son. Mothers aren't kissed that much these days. I guess I have to live off the signs of affection accumulated during the first sixteen years. And I can do that, easily, I find. I have observed other young men change back again a little later. I can wait. Mothers wait a lot anyway.

Back to the design. I will not pretend to think I/we could or should influence the outcome that much. They come as they are. By that i mean, he is shaped by a remix of our genes, otherwise he his totally himself. Based on genes and imprint he's destined to repeat certain patterns as well. But he's free to choose to keep, or change  these patterns.
All in all, he is free to choose who to become in life. I hope he has already absorbed that knowledge, as well as the difference between "what to become" and "who to become".

For his eighteen years I find him surprisingly clear;
He doesn't hide who he is. (Nowadays hormonal rush may obscure it, but he doesn't choose that).
He has a big heart in his tall body, and a clear mind in a fast brain.
He has never ever shown sign of jealousy. He is extremely honest and fair minded.
He can express gratitude, will easily forgive you and he detests waste of any sort
He's easily absorbed in complicated tasks and just as easily bored by meaningless tasks.
He also has a fierce temper, but will easily ask forgiveness.
He still enjoys learning and strongly dislikes being taught.
He's a tolerant friend and can explain complicated matters clearly and patiently if he thinks you need it. If he doesn't think you need it, you are brushed off.
He spent much time in his dad's care as a baby. (My work sent me places). Maybe that explains the length of this  list.

All these traits were manifested at different stages from an early age. All are good, particularly one at a time. But in combination they don't always make his life that smooth.
He has been an interesting person to be around. Not always easy, certainly never boring and definitely challenging - more often than not in a good way. He has been a child that forced me to expand my attention and knowledge. He has drawn out my worst sides, but also the best.

At his best, these days, he looks like a lean, serene elf from "Lord of the Rings". Tall, with long blond hair in a ponytail. Open, wise, dark eyes under dark eyebrows (listen to this gushing; biased, proud mother).
But I hear and see enough of the other him to normally sound quite moderate in my appraisals. On a normal morning he looks far from wise, due to he fact that his eyes are barely open, and if open, they can be angry as well. He has a loud voice and can be very dominating and acting as supreme in the universe.
However, I see these sides as temporary traits just like disturbed sleeping patterns and total amnesia when it comes to admitting to repeated verbal abuse of mother at wake up times.
I'm sure he will learn to get over the hormone induced temporary traits. I trust life will teach him to adjust the others.

Mothers are often fretting over their inadequacy as parents. Thinking we should have done different, done sooner, done later, done more - but rarely less. I have rethought this.
I now hope I haven't done too much, that I have kept my hands off enough. That I haven't changed a design that is intrinsically good. Because they all are when they are handed over to us.....

And to my son - lets drink a toast to him! - As we live far away from family and old friends I choose to say some words here . - I hope he appreciates that I earnestly try to be hands off! The damnedest difficult thing for a parent to do, designer or not!

From Trash to Treasure

Introducing ART FOR HOUSEWIVES - a recycling blog
This is a blog review. It also explains how I was drawn into blogs and blogging, and how I consequently got BAD. (According to Nick Smith I may suffer from "Blogging Addiction Disorder"?). Explaining is always a detour; but so what! I'm really good at making a short story long. Another disorder perhaps? So here it comes:

Because I needed to find better ways to transfer images onto..? anything, I went on a googling spree.
Through many tours and detours, I stumbled across Jen Worden's blog; I liked what I saw and read, then started checking out her links. One link was "Art for housewives". My bookmark reveals I've been reading it since January 2004.

Reading, is perhaps not the word; browsing. Browsing led to reading and more link-checking and subsequently more reading again. But it was a one-way experience and finally I couldn't stand my non-existence anymore, net-wise I mean. Alors, I started blogging and got really BAD.

I still vividly remember stumbling across "Art for housewives" thinking;  "HOUSEWIVES! - oh, come on, who's a housewife?....."  and then; "Yeah, well, I guess I'm one, so let me see..." And I'm so glad I did. But at first I had no idea what hit me.  - Because that's what it does; this HITS you:

A brick-pink page with blue, red and purple text opens. Then you realise there are also different fonts in different sizes, all peppered with links and photos.

Completely confusing but also utterly intriguing. All those links - what's behind them? I had to check, and then I was hooked. The links were like tempting wrapped sweets - i opened one after another - just one more, and one, and another and.... oops, I was late for picking up the kids.....

Your fault, Cynthia Korzekwa, but you're forgiven! 
She's the driving force behind all this. She says "Make art not trash!" - she herself does.  Above, an embroidered piece and detail by Cynthia: "She added to his collection"
But let me finish describing the blog. There's so much information; about artists, about crafters, about recycling, about ecological projects and much, much more. It seems endless. Of course all isn't art as such, but there are artful ideas and creative projects. A quite remarkable collection of information, comments and links. Below from Cynthia's photo portfolio. I just love this one.

I'll let Cynthia tell you how it started;
"You know I began ART FOR HOUSEWIVES because I am truly worried about the environmental situation.  And mainly because of my children and potential grandchildren.  I mean, I didn't raise my kids just to have them die of thirst because there's no water left because some slobs had to overdose on consuming this planet's natural resources. For two years I researched via internet and books anything related to making art using second hand materials (the best ideas come from third world countries).
The results are in a graphic book I wrote called Arte per Massaie (Italian for art for housewives)  that should be published at the end of March. 
What I really  wanted to do is to devise projects using household trash to make, you know, functional art.  Two times functional because you not only make something useful, you also help clean up the environment as well.  Having taught in highschools, I know that the mechanical aspect of creating, for some people, is easier than the conceptual aspect.  Handwork is, for often, easier than head work.  Like paint-by-numbers."

The more I see, the more I wonder how she handles all this? What kind of energy-phenomenon is this lady?
Cynthia herself, is an artist, that I know. And her web sites are as intense and rich as the housewifeart thingy. They're not just full of art, but of thoughts, reflections, words and definitions and quirky ways of putting things. Like these mad cartoon-like pictures that make complete sense when you read the text.

While I write this I'm just checking some of her work links, and I find other pages with Cynthia's art that I haven't found before - like the "Cardboard Retabolos". There's still a link to a page called "she just wanted to blend in", started in 2001 and ended in 2005. But the pages are there and the links work.

As does the whole concept - it really works. But you have to have some time on your hands, to sit down and really dig into it, or bookmark links to save for later. Bookmark straight away, is my advice. You may think you'll be able to come back and find something again, that may take more time than you expect; it's so vast!

I have noticed that I hardly buy glossy magazines any more. Now i bookmark blogs and web pages, saving them for a rainy day, for curling up with a warm cup and a good read!
Thanks to people like Cynthia Korzekwa and lots of others, that is possible, and it's more than just a good substitute.
Sorry, glossy publishers!  You sell, but Cynthia and her likes, they share.... Beat that!

All photos courtesy of Cynthia Korzekwa

 

Textile Tales Retold

Finally I'm ready to add some spice here, by introducing art and artists that I go completely double-wow! about.
I actually intended to - and looked forward to - pointing you to other artists!
- Great contemporary artists that you'd normally discover only by chance.

Even if I do keep in touch with artist friends in Norway, our conversations don't always cover every corner of the art scene. So, i must admit; I probably miss out on a lot of important exhibitions and news.
Like this extraordinary textile artist - Inger Johanne Rasmussen, from Norway - she nearly escaped my attention!

Fortunately I had to visit this winter-cold place recently and was meeting with long-missed friends from student days. We had three short hours to catch up and cover news and not-news from our respective fields of art.
The conversation raced and bounced like a chased rabbit.

It was great. Textile-art came up a lot and my friend Hege just happened to have the most beautiful art catalogue in her bag. No time for reading, but I had to have it!
Later, at home with time to read and absorb, I realised this was sharing-material.
I wanted everyone to see Inger Johanne's art!

Let me just say; to me, these images represent a synthesis of childhood memories, the comfort of wool, or protection by felt, women's amazing craftiness, large scale patterns dwarfing me, painterly colour-use, recycling of material and patterns - and still textile art at the very best.

Below, you can see Inger Johanne at work and read her own words (green text) about how the carpets evolve.Then, some of her thoughts on patterns. Further down in red; more from the exhibition catalogue "Retelling".

About making carpets
"All my carpets are made of felted wool; mostly military-issue foot cloth. The material is dyed and cut to size; The pieces are placed side-by-side and glued with the adhesive and stabilising interfacing Vliselin. Thereafter all the bits and pieces are sewn together by hand, as with appliqué: I like sewing most of all.

When I sew; I look forward to being finished so that I can start designing a new carpet. Therefore I sew very fast and take paraphernalia with me wherever I go. I'm an impatient draftsman because I can't wait to see the colours in
the material.

Often I start cutting into newly dyed, half-dry material because i just can't wait till it dries completely. Cutting the material is great fun but sort of daunting, because it's easy to ruin a lot of material in no time; and it always turns out slightly different than I anticipated. I cut quickly because I'm impatient to glue the pieces together and see how it looks. I can't get a proper impression of the whole thing before all pieces for the carpet are cut, so it's always a rush job. Sometimes I have to re-do this stage several times, and that's a pain because I'm always looking forward to sewing again. That's how it is."

 

About what one can read in a pattern
"Patters can be read in a number of ways - according to which culture it stems from; which era and which temperament. What do you meet in a pattern's colours and rhythms?
You can follow some patterns as though they were a supple movement. Some stiffen their necks, or stumble along. Some allow you to slumber in lightness and dreams. Some can be played with; others can be counted and ordered. You can dance with some patterns, or laugh. Some cause you to shrivel with bad memories. Others are so reliable and familiar that you think - here it is good to sit, as among friends."

Excerpts from the cataloue text; Else-Brit Kroneberg shows how IJR's work explores not just the familiarity of traditional patterns but also the connotations of familiar household objects and textiles. She ends the text with an analysis of the the carpet below:

BETWEEN THE ORDINARY AND THE ELEVATED
By Else-Brit Kroneberg, curator at Soerlandets Kunstmuseum, Kristiansand

"...'Magnetic Home' (2005) is another work thematizing domestic life. Here, Rasmussen makes a variation on the traditional red-and-white-checkered kitchen pattern. Along the textile's mid axis, the pattern disintegrates around seven "magnetic" points. Here the pattern is sucked into a vortex where various objects are portrayed - e.g., a house, a door, a chair and a bed. All the objects befit a home. The pattern seems to hold onto the objects, but also to disappear into them, as a reciprocal relation of belonging.

"Magnetic home" also creates a connection with the viewer. At the seventh station a mirror is represented. The mirror's ability to reflect its environment binds the one who looks in the mirror to a picture.
Here the viewer is bound, pictorially, also to the home and safety."

I'm still a little surprised at how strongly I reacted to these images. Mind you, I have not seen the carpets 'live', only in photos. Even that touched me deeply. In fact, the whole project fascinates me; the size of the carpets impress me, the magnitude of stitches. The thought of taking this on!
Then, I'm just thrilled by the story behind the foot rags - and that they turned up practically at her doorstep (at least at a friends doorstep). All the work behind the hand-dyed cloth is something I can appreciate too, having dabbled in the field. Enlarging familiar patterns could have been a no-brainer, but not with Inger Johann's ingenuity and feeling.

But the best part - she's mastering colour like a painter. Although restrained by the somewhat slow process of cutting, she's still making it work like generous, spontaneous splashes of colour - that's what really gets me! Chapeau!

Later, I learned that visitors to her exhibition at Soerlandets Kunstmuseum, had expressed similar reactions. - Feeling really moved, even to tears! Clearly I'm not the only one feeling the whole childhood and a little more, welling up.

For more pictures or further reading e-mail ingerjohanne@chello.no or tittin@rinde.com to get the catalogue as a pdf file. Price info carpets - Inger Johanne.
Inger Johanne's web site is not active at the moment. Link will come later.

IJR has more exhibitions coming up.
"Risoer Kunstforening" One man show February 2007,
"Radoy Kunstsenter" May 2007
"Kunstnerforbundet" Oslo October 2008
She's also participating in an exhibition at "Norsk Folkemuseum" at Bygdoy in Oslo this summer 2007.

The exhibition at Norsk Folkemuseum, "Nothing disappears", will show works related to recycling. All exhibitions take place in Norway, so if you plan a travel there in near future you can treat yourself to some visual goodies.

Photo by Renato Langfeldt