AMY MEISSNER
  • Home
  • Projects
    • Mother Thought of Everything
    • Inheritance
    • Reliquary
    • Public Art
  • CV
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

The traveling eye 4: Mystery

9/21/2014

2 Comments

 
I'm working with circle imagery and the containment of loss right now. This wasn't where I intended to go with the piece I'm currently working on, but it's where I've arrived. I can draw in my sketchbook or scribble on little shitty scraps of paper that I then lose, but until I start messing around on the wall with fabrics and bits, the depth of what I'm trying to ask myself isn't fully fleshed. (Mostly what I'm asking is: "What?!" and "No way. Could I do/say/put that in a quilt?" and "Why wouldn't I?" and "Is a quilt the right place for this?" and "Why is it?" and "Why won't it?" and "Why should I?") 

My 5-year-old daughter announced in the doorway: "Mama, you aren't even really down here working. You're just standing there staring at the wall. And why are you whispering? Who are you talking to?" How do you explain to a child, who understands that good, solid work is done with hands and body, that this stillness is also a way to work, that work with the mind never stops?

And the whispering: "That was just me talking to me."

And the mystery of this: "Why do you want to talk to you?" 

Picture

And we can travel to the farthest, darkest corners of our minds, and we can whisper-ask the same questions again and again and think we're coming up with answers, but this, itself, is also a form of circular containment ... of the wrong kind ... and one that we have to claw our way from because it will hold us back. It will keep us seductively safe from asking questions, from looking up and out. We will disappear inside ourselves instead. We may continue to create, but we won't risk.

My last employer and mentor from the clothing design industry, Manuel Mendoza, a couturier from Manila, used to say, "You can't design from inside a box." But more importantly, he said, "Damn it, stop standing there. If you don't just cut the pucking pabric you'll be paralyzed forever. You have to move. Just cut the pucking pabric! Unless it the last pabric in the world, you can always buy more." (I should mention here that this particular 'pucking pabric' was a $500/meter Versace silk print featuring enormous turquoise peacocks or flowers or something that had to overlap and match precisely up the center front for a certain busty client. And I cut it, but I tight cheeked it the whole time, and no I didn't have to buy more fabric. More deodorant, maybe.) 

Then, of course, there's Diana Vreeland, who said: 

"The eye has to travel." 

And we do this
in order to discover that nature almost always provides an answer:

Amy Meissner, the natural world, www.amymeissner.com
Lichen, Prince William Sound, Alaska.

In order to compare maps and learn the landscapes others have already explored:

Junko Oki, Woky Shoten, Japan
Junko Oki, "Woky Shoten," Japan.
Manisha Parekh, Waiting, India.
Manisha Parekh, "Waiting," India.

In order to process
and to go deeper and to connect to something dark and real and split:

Picture
Paula Kovarik, "Same But Not," 2011. Machine pieced and quilted (the artist used one continuous line of stitch per side, representing the singularity of a continuous journey). An exploration of the rift between cultures and races.
Picture
Paula Kovarik, "Same But Not" detail, 2011.

In order to return
probably more than once
with the intent to collect:

Amy Meissner, the natural world, www.amymeissner.com
Lichen, Prince William Sound, Alaska.

In order to 
contain the fear of loss and loss and loss,
and ponder the need to gather and to hold.
Itself, a mystery 
that lies within us all.

Amy Meissner, work in progress, quartz beach stone, wool suiting, silk organza mesh, hand stitch. 2014. www.amymeissner.com
Quartz beach stone, wool pinstriped suiting, silk organza mesh, hand stitch. Work in progress, 2014.
2 Comments
Kathleen
9/9/2015 07:41:08 am

Love this entry. thank you!!!

Reply
Amy Meissner link
9/9/2015 12:23:40 pm

Hi Kathleen,
Thank you for taking the time to comment on this post. It's an older one and it was good for me to go back and re-read it. Somehow, almost exactly one year later, I'm STILL working with circle imagery and loss. Huh. That's sort of interesting. Thanks for that insight!
All the best to you,
XO
Amy

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Amy Meissner, textile artist. Photo credit Brian Adams, 2013. www.amymeissner.com

    Amy Meissner

    Artist in Anchorage, Alaska, sometimes blogging about the collision of history, family & art, with the understanding that none exists without the other.

    Picture

    Categories

    All
    Alaska
    Artist Profiles
    Beach Work
    Book Illustration
    Boxes Of Mystery
    Children
    Embroidery
    Fear
    Find Your Teachers
    Former Lives
    Found Objects
    Gallery Shows
    Girl Story
    Histories
    How To
    Illustration
    Inheritance Project
    Interviews
    Louise Bourgeois
    Mending
    Motherhood
    Natural World
    Photography
    Process
    Public Art
    Quilts
    Reliquary
    Textile Art
    Traveling Eye
    Vintage Linens
    Wedding Gowns
    Wool
    Workshops

    Archives

    February 2019
    May 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014

  • Home
  • Projects
    • Mother Thought of Everything
    • Inheritance
    • Reliquary
    • Public Art
  • CV
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact