When I first read the prospectus for their residency program I knew I wanted to do it. I had a million ideas. What an opportunity to work with so many different kinds of fabrics, some familiar some unfamiliar. I was salivating thinking of all the amazing fabrics, no longer available. Fabrics that under normal circumstances would be far too expensive to experiment with. It would be amazing to say the least.
The selection process like any residency or scholarship required a lot of preparation. I needed to get together a resume and examples of my past work. The hard part was coming up with a clear concept. If your creative mind is anything like mine, it's always hard to distill everything in my head into one simple idea. As my working style matures I've found it easier and easier to articulate my ideas as well as reel in my tendency to be a non stop fountain of ideas for exploration. I've realized it's important to keep focused on one idea in order to clearly articulate it. I've seen too many shows in which artists with ADD seem unable to control their impulses, slinging ideas at the wall like a monkey in heat. If there was one thing I learned from my studies in Russia it was the importance of creative discipline.
The economic collapse and seeming uncertainty of the global economy has dominated nearly every conversation in the media, at homes and in offices. It's affecting artists as well. I know it's been on my mind. There are new pressures and a new sense of uncertainty. I've found myself drawn to the Great Depression as a result. I keep looking for parallels from the Roosevelt and Hoover eras. From the time when American art was all regional. Modern art was a strictly European idea and the eminence of New York as an art center was decades away.
Over the last few weeks I've found myself revisiting Old Hollywood movies with themes of survival and perseverance and hope. Early technicolor in films such as Gone With the Wind, A Star is Born and The Wizard of Oz are so rich and lovely.
In San Francisco we're lucky to have several great WPA (Works Progress Administration) projects. A great deal of mural work was done in this period. The government paid architects and designers, painters, weaver and sculptures to build and decorate monuments and buildings for public use in national parks and public beaches. Beach Chalet, Koit Tower, and the Maritime Museum are all wonderful examples of work from this period and features amazing mural work. Like technicolor the colors are powerful and intense. Strange combinations that now seem foreign and exotic. They are truly American color palates that predate the influence of the European Emigres reflecting a more regionalist American aesthetic. What is so amazing about these films and public works is that they embody an American optimism that seems to be missing in our current economic crisis.
For silhouettes I looked at WPA photographers such as Dorothea Lange and Margaret Bourke White. Images of sharecroppers, Okies and Hooverites in simple dresses made from flower sacks and mens shirts reflect the resourcefulness of Americans. There is also an element of practical craft traditions such as quilting and home sewing that seem really charming. The DIY ers that I know really seem to be a strong continuation of this tradition. I like that idea and feel like it really captures the zeitgeist.
After establishing a color palate and a silhouette, I had to find a way to make it contemporary. I looked at the work of three of my favorite modern artist that really embody American modernity. Cy Twombley, Robert Motherwell and Tucker Nichols. The modernist iconography and graffiti elements in their work seem like the perfect catalyst for bringing my 1930s inspiration into this millenium.
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