Inspiration – 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.

Hollyhocks

Linda — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 02:51:35 +0000

Hollyhocks! Such a beautiful flower.

I was at the Denver Botanic Gardens recently, shooting closeup photos of leaves and plants before fall sets in. I was photographing the hollyhocks when an elderly lady commented about them being a flower of the past. When she was young, she would put a popsicle stick into the narrow end of the flower, using the stick as the head and body, which she decorated. The flower portion became the flowing dress, and presto… she had a dancing doll. Nature …. instills imagination! We all see things through different eyes.

See a video on making hollyhock dolls.