graffiti – Linda C. Everson

Inspiration – James Coignard

Linda — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 04:44:10 +0000

A French artist born in 1925 whose paintings and etchings I admire is James Coignard. He dealt with extremely tactile surfaces and the use of some graffiti. The structure of his 1980’s paintings in which he used squares or rectangles to draw the viewer into the artwork had much influence on the structure of my own monoprints.

My Arborglyph images are also ‘squares’ laid upon a background surface and they tend to float on the surface of the print. Many people have commented that the Arborglyph squares in my monoprints look 3-dimensional, or like floating windows. The window effect is very significant in James Coignard’s paintings and prints as well.

Coignard was coined for doing carborundum etchings, as was Antonio Tapies, Pierre Marie Brisson, and Miro. Carborundum etching was ‘invented’ by Goetz in the 1960’s. It’s a process where silicon carbide (an abrasive grit). is applied to printing plates to create tone and dense areas of black . It actually is the ‘reverse of etching’, because it builds UP the plate instead of the plate being incised. The process can create a very textural quality.

I was recently interviewed on www.blogtalkradio.com/annette-coleman in the Artist name names, what artists inspire their work episode. Coignard and Antonio Tapies were two favorite artists I mentioned.

Inspiration – Antonio Tapies

Linda — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 04:44:34 +0000

Artists are often asked what other artists inspire them. Yesterday I was interviewed on www.blogtalkradio.com/annette-coleman in the Artist name names, what artists inspire their work episode. I thought I’d share my thoughts about inspiration in my blog also.

One of my favorite art books is The Language of Antonio Tapies: Surface and Symbol. Both surface (texture) and symbols are a major element of my artwork as well. Antonio Tapies is a Spanish artist who does prints, mixed media paintings, assemblage and sculpture. In the 1950’s he did Matter Paintings in which he used sand, dust, and other materials that suggested fossils, cracks, and fissures. Matiere painting refers to use of texture. Tapies also often used letters, graffiti, and calligraphy- like symbols in his artwork, possibly because he came from a family of bookmakers. In my Arborglyphs series of monoprints, I also use calligraphy-like symbols. Tapies once said, “Art is not decorative, it is a philosophical system or language that contains a total vision of the world”. I like his use of the word “language”. Although my Arborglyph symbols have no specific meaning, they often ‘seem’ to evoke a memory of something in the viewer’s eyes.

I was also inspired by a video about him at the Tapies Foundacio in
Barcelona, Spain. Tapies was filmed walking in his garden, home, alleys and pathways, where he observed what he called “glimpses” of the fairly mundane things. Texture on the cobblestone, scratches on an ancient door, shadows in the garden, or flickering light across a rugged wall. All these so called unimportant close-ups of the world played an important role in his abstract imagery, and I also make the same close-up observations of nature.

If you look at his artwork and at mine, your would probably not see many similarites, yet our visions are fairly similar. We both like surface and texture, both make use of symbols and language in an abstract manner.

Fox

Linda — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:26:37 +0000

In my last blog I mentioned that Zorro means ‘Fox’ in Spanish.

DAM (Denver Art Musuem) has an the intriguing exhibit of Sandy Skoglund’s 1989 installation … Fox Games, which has 28 gray fox in various poses in a totally red restaurant. The fox scampering over the floor, tables and chairs; even hanging off the walls. Its totally WILD! Skogland creates these unusual environments and photographs them. While more people are familiar with her photos, to observe one of her installations is a big treat! I saw an installation in New York where everything, people included, were made of cheetos. Cheesy! One of her many themes is the encroachment of humanity upon nature, or in this fox exhibit, nature upon humanity.

In my own neighborhood, we are having that a similar scenario of nature and man encroaching upon each other. While walking my dog, I/we often see fox and coyote, but they usually keep their distance. It’s actually wonderful to be so close to nature. However, a few humans and their pets have had some aggressive encounters with these “wild animals”, and authorities are considering some intervention. My own vet has told me to carry a stick. In Aspen Co, they’re also having many encounters with bears roaming into homes, businesses, or just on the streets.

Some of my artwork is also an example of man’s encroachment upon nature. My ‘Arborglyphs’ series are derived from aspen tree bark, sometimes the natural scarring, sometimes grafitti. Since aspen bark is light colored and fairly smooth in texture, carving grafitti onto aspen trees tends to be very popular.

I have found multitude of tree grafitti with interesting motifs. Names, initials, hearts, and dates are most common. A guess we all have to leave our imprint. The earliest date so far has been 1944. A few interesting words were: “The Life”, “Last Day Working”, and “Good by”. It’s amazying how much grafitti one tree can hold. I can only hope that this encroachment upon the trees does not harm them.

I don’t often see animal words as tree graffiti, but did find the word “FOX”, which became the 6′ x 6″ Arborglyph monoprint below.

Arborglyph: FOX

Arbor Day, Arborglyphs…

Linda — Sun, 03 May 2009 19:48:08 +0000

Arbor Day was celebrated recently and it makes me think of my father! He was always planting trees and bushes, and I remember neighbors saying that if he planted a broom, it would also grow. Arbor Day, which is usually celebrated on the last Friday in April, encourages the planting of trees.

I too have a penchant for trees, and they are a source of imagery for my artwork. ‘Arbor’ pertains to trees and a ‘glyph’ is ‘a symbol used for non-verbal communication’.

I began my series of Arborglyph monoprints back in 2002. I was photographing textures (natural scarring and peeling) on aspen tree bark, and decided to use those images in my printmaking endeavors. I took the negatives and enlarged them in the darkroom. To my delight, the images looked symbolic and resembled calligraphy or characters. I exposed the images to solarplates (photographic printmaking plates) and then printed them onto paper on an etching press. I began with 6″x 6″ solarplates, but quickly starting combining several solarplates with other printmaking techniques to create larger, more complex monoprints. I am still working on that series today. See my PORTFOLIO, Arborglyphs.

Arborglyph: (1 symbol 3) I

Later, I heard an interesting discusssion about aspen carvings on Colorado Public Radio (KCFR). They were talking about Arborglyphs in the southwestern states. Apparently, the name I was using for my monoprint series is also the name used for the graffiti carved into aspen trees by Basque and Hispanic shepherds while tending their animals from the early 1800’s – 1950’s. Because aspen trees do not have a long life span, documentation is currently being made of these older graffiti laden trees before they die and their legend disappears. Several articles have recently been written about these Arborglyph trees, and many people at art festivals have commented on certain trails to take to find these shepherd images.

Sometimes I photograph the man-made graffiti on the aspen trees, but generally I prefer the natural scarring and peeling. I’ve found that imagery provides more abstracted, symbolic images which tend to look more like calligraphy, and have a more mysterious overtone. I’ve created my own pictorial language of glyphs and actually have my own ‘invented language’.

I also incorporate the glyphs in my artwork into the title signature line on the monoprint.