Saturday, May 21, 2011

To Do or Not to Do, that is the Question??





I am at a juncture with the Kollwitz Homage, the stained glass assemblage, I am currently working on. From the beginning of the piece I imagined and planned an undercurrent of an archive collage of photographic images of poverty, hunger, the Holocaust from the WWI and WWII era. I have written about it in my papers; my mentor artist discussed it in her mid-term evaluation.

I have completed the painting on the glass with vitreous paints, and have built the photo-montage elements and am now at a juncture of applying these to the back of the glass.

I am very pleased with the painted elements on the glass, even though window is on the work-board and you cannot completely know what it will do visually in the light. However, I am pleased enough with it, not to go forward with the collage undercurrent.

Achhh!!! I can hear my UA college (MA- art ed & glass '87)/ glass professor Roland Jahn, in his Schwarzenegger-like accent, saying: "I know what you are trying to do, and respect that, 'BUT, Don't Do It!!!" Yikes, I think I am at the threshold of the internal art-craft debate in my work!!!

Years ago at UA, I was working on a large landscape window, a translation from a plein air landscape painting, and had built a entire undercurrent of slumped glass. This references the quote above. I listened to Roland's advice. I did not apply the undercurrent, but assembled it as an entire separate piece.

So I have this internal debate going... I have called my mentor artist to see if she can swing by and give me her opinion.

I have invested a lot of time, effort, thought and theory into the photo-montage elements, so the big question is: Do I abandon it, or go forward with it?

You can see all the details in motion of this current piece at:



3 comments:

  1. Hi Betti,
    I guess the big question is: What's the work about? One Holocaust image makes it about the Holocaust, IMHO: you can't lessen the weight of those images. Or at the very least, about Kolwitz as a Holocaust survivor? Tho' I suspect you've thought about this...

    -jeff

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  3. Jeff, Thanks for your post and comment. I feel like I am going through a revolving door. Earlier this evening I was all set to proceed with the collage elements, but Hannah commented to me directly with her opinion, not too. Still thinking on it, but think it best perhaps not to.

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