Menahga Arts Guild: Where do you get your ideas?

As artists, I think this question comes up every time someone looks at our art. They try to analyze and understand it; sometimes with success and sometimes leaving us quite bewildered.

As an artist, I do the same thing when looking at another artist's work. Often it's very clear as seen in a portrait or in a landscape. Simply put, they are expressing their vision of something they found worthy to preserve on canvas or paper.

Abstract art or some of the non-objective work is not quite as easy. Often in an abstract work you can almost pick out a part of an object or something familiar to us, although it's generally pulled apart or distorted in some manner that our brains can not quite assemble it in a manner it's accustomed to doing.

Somedays, that's exactly how I feel my artist brain works – abstractly. I have so many ideas and thoughts when I first start a project, it's hard to filter out and edit what I really want to express. Sometimes – it just happens. Sometimes – it's a painstaking process, but most of the time, it's a bit in between the two. I'll have a concrete idea, but then let the brain send messages to the hand and then just see what happens.

The current print I am working on is a prime example of that. The print will be an edition of 13, for a postcard print exchange with a theme of "Light after Dark." Not an easy theme to express without doing the obvious, but after a bit of thought, I decided to do a version of what's known as a black line print using some of my own re-occurring themes that fit the bill.

To begin with, a black line print works slightly differently than a regular relief print, taking advantage of the fact a lighter ink really can be printed on top of a darker ink (Light after Dark). This goes against the traditional format of color block printing which starts with lighter colors and building up with darker colors on the successive layers.

For my image, I chose to use the egg, an often used symbol in my work related to new life I thought it would be a wonderful use of the theme as well, since life begins after the egg is opened and light finally hits the newly emerged being after being in the dark. Additionally, I used another thematic symbol in my work – sunflowers. For me, there is no significant deep meaning, other than I love how they follow the sun (light) and it's the only thing I can seem to grow in the inconsistent Minnesota summer. However, one source says that "the way they move their massive heads to meet the sun make them a flower of spiritual attainment, flexibility, and opportunity. They are also symbolic of good luck, wealth and ambition." Using the seed, a seedling emerging from the ground and a snippet of the full grown sunflower, again addressed the theme.

I haven't fully decided how the prints will be finished up. I'm considering both an addition of gold leaf and / or beeswax. The beeswax would be a nice way to seal the prints as they will be traveling via the U.S. Postal Service. Each one must be arrive with the post mark to the University of Jacksonville in Alabama. But that part of my decision making will be determined after a bit of experimentation.

I don't always work from themes, sometimes, I just get inspired by something someone says, or am influenced by what's happening around me. Sometimes it's my life experiences and sometimes from dreams I have. I would like to pursue more of that, but I've only been successful with one work of art from a dream. It was a powerful dream and extremely vivid with the color red.

I like the looseness of never being trapped into a particular genre or style of art. For me the exploration of ideas and media is part of a great journey, although I highly admire artists who have mastered the media they work with.

Feel free to comment about your process or about anything you see here.

Contributing Member of the MAG Blog – Dawn Rossbach

I've included some photos here so you can see part of the process of hand pulled relief prints.