Summer has often been a time when I am traditionally less productive with my art. Cooking, cycling, being outside, volunteering at Drumlin all take me away from art making and sometimes it can be challenging to build up momentum with an idea or work when one’s time is constantly being broken up. But Sally gave me the key to the Turtle and I do not waste her wonderful gift and I am determined to go and work as much as I can.
The Gelli plate printing took an interesting turn last week. I went in with an idea about how to explore my Tallit/Keffiyah drawings with print in hopes of capturing what made “Encampment” and “This Your Noise” so successful. I had an idea of using slight shifts in whites to create a graphic difference between the two garments and then play with black on them graphically much like my ink studies I have been doing at home. But instead of clean prints I was a headed toward a big mess of a sheet and ready to leave the studio feeling disappointed when I grabbed another piece of paper and had another go at it using some of what ink remained on the Gelli plate. I grabbed some fine string and tied myself some tassels. And what came out of that was magical. I immediately texted it to Sally who gave it the Title “Fog of War” and said it was for her a piece she liked much more than the drawings because it captured the feeling without making her stomach get all tight and nervous the way the other drawings did. I should point out that Sally and her Husband were in Israel for 4 months while her husband, a scientist was at the Weissman Institute. So her connection to the war and what is happening is felt quite deeply.
Today I went back. I had spent last night taking embroidery thread and making little tassels. Some were tied like the teffilot on a Tallit. Others were tied like the fringes on the Keffiyah. I had no idea what I was going to do with them but I wanted to see what happened when I tried some of the same techniques I had used in Fog of war. What happened was unexpected but also very much captured what I hoped to capture with the senseless death and sadness going on in Gaza. They are a bit more blunt and a bit less poetic. But there is so much to explore with these mono prints and I am eager to see what comes.
