"I wanted to write a novel about a woman I would recognize, who had a reflective side to her life"
"I wanted to write about a woman's discovery that she was an artist and the impact of that. Nothing had prepared her for this sense of herself."
I have been too busy to stitch.
I am attending the ETN conference in Leiden and visiting friends. Very little time off.
In Amsterdam I saw the Riksmuseum and the stars on the ceiling and Marian Bijlenga's studio and the Oasis of Matisse. I have been sleeping solidly but not for long periods. My feet are swollen and achy, I should have brought real shoes, not sandals.
My ideas don't occur in a specific moment.
They are more like processes.
My mother is a practicing textile artist, and has been so for my entire life. Growing up I was privy to many conversations about the place of art in the life of a mother, a woman, a person in the community. Art and art making were integral to my upbringing, from the activities I was given to pass time in our home, or the cultural landscapes of new cities we would visit as a family, art took precedence. My desire to be an artist comes from my understanding of the language of art and it is the conversation that I want to be part of both on a local, daily, and intimate level as well as a larger global dialogue.
Abstract design comes from inside.
It gives the work an alien feeling.
April asked me: "Do you think you are a disciple of Agnes Martin?"
"Agnes Martin doesn't talk about her work so I'm not going to talk about mine" she said.
"I'm interested in the beauty of a cloud." she continued.