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Series 2 earthwater 4 earthwater Series Earth: solid and immovable. Water: a mysterious contradiction unto itself. These two elements reflect the essence of who I am and the ideas that I convey in this body of work. The concept for the Earth Water Series originated in an art therapy workshop with Susanna Ruebsatt. During the workshop we were asked to reflect on a childhood memory. I was taken back to the place where earth and water meet at Kye Bay near Comox on Vancouver Island. The salty coolness of the water brushes itself against my feet. The wet hard sand crunches between my toes. I look at my footprints and the water casually washes them away. I hear the rhythmic sound of the waves as they roll onto the shoreline. The memories are joyful innocence, familiar and comforting. These images are the seeds for this body of work. I experimented with the image in varying forms such as shape, mood, and colour to see how they might alter the impact visually and emotionally. The image was created in two thematically related but differently composed designs. The first design is a naive interpretation of the childhood memory. The water laps onto the shore. The second design is a conceptual interpretation. The water is circular and bound by wave upon wave. The sand surrounds the water. The first form is a square shape that represents a limitless form that
encourages the design to continue beyond the boundaries of the visual
work. Its energy is seemingly infinite. The naive interpretation has
been turned upside down to create balance between the earth and water
and evokes a calm mood while the conceptual interpretation evolves into
borderline chaos. The third form is in the shape of the back of a Kimono. I am inspired by the artistry of this traditional form and its designs. I wanted to see what happens when a traditional Canadian craft form is used to interpret a traditional Japanese art form. Its original fluid shape is in stark contrast to the tactile hand hooked hardness of the fixed rectangular shapes. The Kimono shape influences my relationship to the design. It cuts into it and alters its mood so that at first glance it is one large piece but on second glance it is fragmented. It has evolved into a triptych and at the same time each piece that makes up the triptych also evokes its own individual mood. This exploration of concept and form has been a journey that allows
me to see how subtle and not so subtle creative choices such as design,
shape, mood, and colour can alter the emotional impact of a piece. I
am surprised by the chaotic energy created in Earth Water 4. It struggles
to escape the confines of the rug. I am soothed by the calming powers
of the naive interpretation of the Kimono back in Earth Water 3. My
own creative and conceptual preconceptions were challenged as the pieces
began to take on lives and new directions of their own. For me it's
about letting go and trusting the creative process. The creative process Who I am is shaped by unique circumstance, culture, religion, friends, family, education, and my own nature. These experiences influence what I bring to my art. I call it my aesthetic. One of my favourite childhood experiences was growing up on Vancouver Island. These memories are filled with joy, excitement, and curiousity. They're the memories that drew me back to British Columbia twenty years later. The concept for the series began in an art therapy workshop with Susanna Ruebsatt in Vancouver. We were asked to reflect back on a happy childhood memory. I thought about my childhood on the Vancouver Island. My mark making took on the form of water and sand. I remember floating over sandbars. My body skimming across the surface of the sand. The coolness of the water as it brushed up against my feet. These memories triggered a series of feelings that attached themselves to visual images. Especially in the pieces 1 through 3. The interpretation of pieces 1 through 3 is deliberately naive and reflects the childhood memory and feelings. The second interpretation comes from a deeper adult place. I believe that the first drawings created a pathway to the deeper subconscious. I don't think I would have developed the design for the pieces 4 through 6 if I had not first drawn the workshop piece. I wanted to explore the earth water theme based on two related but different designs and I choose to hook each design in a different shape to see how their energy would be defined by that shape. I had an idea and I had an intended outcome series. But the creative process was an unknown. Each piece would be a unique journey and through that journey I learned to trust the process. One of the biggest challenges was to stay focused on the original concept because as I finished each piece and internalized the experience I wanted to take what I had learned and apply it to the next piece. However, the way I had envisioned the concept for this series was quite specific. Every piece is related. If I began to change the design or dramatically alter the colours, my original concept would come apart and the pieces would become unrelated. I kept refocusing myself back to the original concept and worked within that framework. I also found that when I was working on a piece my mind would go to a place that was meditative. I would develop a rhythm that propelled me forward and if I left a piece for a long period of time such as several days, when I returned to it my approach would have unavoidably evolved and it was difficult to pick up where I had left off. I learned the hard way that it was very important to finish each piece as quickly as possible. The most challenging piece to hook was earthwater 4. This was the second piece in the series to be hooked. I had hooked earthwater 5 several months earlier and when I sat down to hook earthwater 4 it was a difficult process and I ended up rehooking this piece several times. What I learned was that instead of building on what I had done in earthwater 5 I was starting from scratch and essentially reinventing the wheel. In addition, beacause it was a larger piece the overall impact of the image and colour relationships were now different. Within the series there are variations between each piece but I tried maintain the integrity of the original concept. I also found the order in which I hooked each piece was important. When I hooked pieces 1 – 3 I began with #1. This developed a framework for the other two pieces. It was easier to work from large to small instead of working from small to large which is what I did in the pieces 4-6. NOTES:
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