CHRIS MAKES IT

Above: A spread from my sketchbook exploring mark making inspired by nature. Background image by Deeana Garcia via Pexels

I’m mesmerized watching Eva Kalien’s reels of her mixed media sketches, but inevitably I want her to have stopped way sooner than she does. 

I am drawn to some of Eva Kitok’s early embroidery work, where parts of the composition are outlined with stitch, but otherwise incomplete. Ditto the embroidery of Tilleke Schwarz.

And more times than not, I love my own sketches more than I do the finished piece.

What is it that appeals to me about the unfinished or almost finished, the quick sketches in the sketchbook vs the realized art? When something is provisional, it means that I haven’t committed. That it still has the possibility to be brilliant. That there are questions unanswered still.

It’s like I get to be 25 all over again, starting my first job as an eager young “dressed for success” professional with PhD in hand, not the person who’s wrapping up a career at at least my 10th employer, having been fired and laid off more than enough times for the scales to have fallen from my eyes. 

Unfinished things could still be something not yet determined, but maybe wonderful.

Perhaps this is why I’ve always enjoyed generating lots of ideas — maybe too much, why I spend (waste?) so much time exploring all possibilities. As a designer, it’s been a way to head off having to actually commit to an idea, and having the implementation — the design — come up short of the vision.

Maybe this is why it’s been hard to get rid of art supplies and books that I bought with the idea of: I’m going to pursue [insert here: encaustic, painting, jewelry making, scratchboard]. I dabble in things, occasionally produce pieces that to other people’s eyes are really good, but quickly move on, in case I might have to commit and fail.

Maybe that’s why it’s felt momentous to get rid of supplies these past few months. Giving them to someone who will actually use them is my way of dealing with accepting I’m not going to actually do X. It’s deciding to focus on a couple of media and let go of the rest. It’s accepting that my life is careening toward being "finished" and it’s not going to meet up to the mental sketches I had of it in my 20s, 30s, and 40s.

In January, I started doing an Instagram-based challenge, #52tagshannemade, started by Anne Brooke. Each week, she posts a video to YouTube with that week’s theme. The themes have alternated between particular stitches, such as pistil or bullion, or concepts, such as wrapping or hidden treasure.

When 2021’s 100 Day Project kicked off in January, I intended to spend 4 minutes doing a 4-inch square cut and paste collage each day, using two prompts from a set I created. For example, type and complementary colors or cut paper and geometric. (See the entire series on Instagram.)

That lasted about two weeks. Maybe three. 😆 It felt like I kept drawing the same two prompts from the box. It started to feel way too constricting (aka, I got bored), and I definitely was spending more than 4 minutes most days.

Here’s what I learned this year:

1. Abstract compositions are deceptively hard.

Above: Nine collages playing with shapes and translucent red paper.

2. I swing wildly between craving structure and wanting to let loose.

3. Posting to the Instagram community connected me to artists whose work or words gave me inspiration to keep going and try something different when I was ready to stop (thanks, Jon Townsend and Bhupali Gupte).

Above: Four collages inspired by Jon Townsend’s work.

4. This is a great way to start the day when you wake up way too early (which happened a lot in the dark months of pandemic self-isolation).

5. I admire layering and randomness in others’ work but I really struggle to break free of my minimalist, must-be-a-reason-for-everything style. I’m sure my background in writing about science and training in graphic design has a lot to do with this.

Above: A series of collages using bits and pieces of images of buildings to create surrealist architecture.

6. I’m improving at dissecting what I respond to in others' work and engaging in formal analysis of compositions (see 5.)

Above: Collages inspired by Bhupali Gupte’s work and exploring layering.

7. As in every year's 100 Day Project, there’s a lot to be said to just keep going.

Above: After convincing myself to keep going, I did a series of “landscapes” made up of bits and pieces placed at random to build up the horizon.

8. I am still in love with type.

Above: Type-based collages.

A recent article in the Textile Artist prompted some self-reflection on where I am in my “stitcher's journey.” The author, Louise Etheridge, identified four stages, with recommendations of how to progress from one to the next.

As in most things, I’m somewhere between two stages, depending which day of the week you ask me! 😂

If your 2020 was anything like mine, you alternated between anxiety, anger, and despair, with a big dose of “What the hell day is this?” thrown in. Enmeshed in the day to day, I forgot about the many ways that I grew as an artist and crafter, thanks to being isolated and forcibly retired from my weekly game of basketball with the “orthopedic squad.”

Looking back over the year, here’s some things I noted.

Collage twinchies, October 2020.