Alone – with a lot going on around her…

August 21, 2018

I had not looked at this work in awhile. But today I travelled through all the details of it again and remembered why it speaks to me, and why I especially enjoyed the process of creating it.

A writer contacted me asking for permission to use this work as a poetry book cover. (How great is that!) It’s an honor to know that she has discovered the work, has taken time to respond to its content and felt drawn to it.

So, that’s how I came to look again at “Once She Could.” (I’ll be sure to post information about the book when it’s published.)

My hope in creating this textile collage was that it would combine a sense of innocence and possibility in the little girl with a complex environment, one that has a lot of layers.

To create the complexity of the girl’s world, I combined printed and painted fabrics with original photos that I transferred onto fabric. There are three photo transfer sections, and they all worked differently.

Beneath the girl’s feet is a section of complex, overlapping twigs. I am intrigued with the way they seem to suggest underground roots. I used a lot of transparent acrylic wash in this section to define and deepen the root shapes.

The watery reflections at the lower right came from a photo I took of a pond in Georgia. I did almost nothing to the transfer after getting it on the fabric. The picture came out clearly and I love the sense of mixed reality – trees, but upside down… — The watery reflections at the lower right came from a photo I took of a pond in Georgia. I did almost nothing to the transfer after getting it on the fabric. The picture came out clearly and I love the sense of mixed reality – trees, but upside down, and rippling, as reflected in the water.

The branches at the top right are a third photo transfer. I ended up doing a lot of opaque painting on this part. The white blossom-like shapes are suggested in the photo , and enhanced by direct painting. These white shapes are related to the white… — The branches at the top right are a third photo transfer. I ended up doing a lot of opaque painting on this part. The white blossom-like shapes are suggested in the photo , and enhanced by direct painting. These white shapes are related to the white circle the girl is drawing. Are they her thoughts that have taken flight?

This work has a landscape composition with a strong center horizon line and a clear above-and-below. In the below-ground section, the photo transfers mix with other rich colors and textures.

She’s all by herself there on that limb.

All around her there’s a lot going on. Just like life.

This work is available, and posted on my website HERE.

And, if you’d like to watch a video I created of this work
which includes some original poetry, it’s on YouTube, HERE.

Water + Home… putting together two powerful images

August 12, 2018

In my studio this week I have begun a series of smaller art quilts that are simple compositions combining images of home with images of water, and tree silhouettes connecting the two.

This feels completely natural to me. As I construct the house sections, piecing in reflecting waterlilies or photo transfers of rippling water intuitively seems just right.

And yet – logically – water and a home are not a good mix. Nobody wants to find water seeping in from a wall or roof. The term “underwater” regarding a home is not desirable. And severe weather can damage or destroy a home with water.

So, I’ve been thinking through what this is about. I think that what I like about water is its quality of hidden life. I find it mesmerizing to sit by a body of water and just look down into the surface. Below there is another world. Sometimes life forms are visible: fish, moving plants. Much of the life is microscopic and invisible. But it’s there.

At the same time that it is mysterious, water is soothing. Imagine the sound of moving water. Waves against a beach. Ripples and splashes over rocks. People are just drawn to the sound of water.

The series of art pieces I’m creating about home invites viewers to enter their memories and dreams of home. It is not intended to be a logical journey, but an emotional one.

The water forms inside are a vehicle to enter that emotional place of remembering.

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Did a bicycle just ride through my artwork?

August 5, 2018

Just a quick flash – caught in the corner of my eye… Did a bicycle just ride through my artwork?

A small framed rice paper collage hangs on the wall in the dining room. Because it’s under reflective plexiglass, sometimes window reflections appear to be in the artwork itself. When a window reflection included a biker floating down the street through the front window, it added motion.

I like that flash of time and change as a metaphor for growing with a piece of artwork.

When I invite a piece of art into my home, my hope is that it will be like a relationship with a person. There is something new to see and learn each day. My understanding of it may grow and develop with time.

I framed this small collage because it speaks to me. It was one of my earliest experiments with monotype printing on rice paper. When I look at it, I remember the process. I remember the building up of layers. I enjoy again the roots connecting the dark abstract shape at the top and the rocks at the bottom.

When I change, my feeling about this artwork changes. Experiences will move through me day by day, just as a bicyclist moved through the reflected window. Living with original artwork is an opportunity to experience emotion and meaning – as well as how those things grow, move and become something new.

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A Chance to Talk About My Own Artwork (Oh No!)

June 21, 2018

Reading what somebody else has written about you is a bit like reading your own epitaph. Except you're still here! The whole process can be a little scary. But I always appreciate the chance to explain what my work is about to various arts publications. It's a good discipline to condense thoughts down to a certain number of words or meet other publication parameters. Many thanks to Artsyshark for this promo piece in May of 2018.

Artist Bobbi Baugh knows that everything has an inner story, one that isn’t visible from the exterior. Through her textile collaged quilts, she works to express forces beneath the surface.

“Becoming One with the Night” Textile Collage/Art Quilt, 45” x 35”

Life experiences can come together in unexpected ways. As an undergraduate art student over forty years ago, I concentrated in watercolor and drawing. In my career before being a full-time artist, I worked in the printing industry, surrounded by the rhythms of platemaking, pulling an image, re-inking and printing again. And, from the time I created homemade A-line skirts on my mother’s sewing machine as a teen, I have enjoyed sewing. Now, I create textile collaged works and art quilts, using all of those experiences.

So it Will Not Break in Two” Textile Collage/Art Quilt, 42.5” x 32.5”

Everybody has a story. Every thing has a story. Whether we are looking at a person, or a structure, or a part of the natural world, what we see is not all there is. There is always more going on. That’s what interests me.

“Saying the Magic Words” Textile Collage/Art Quilt, 43” x 34”

I’m intrigued with depicting a visible object along with the suggestion of its inner reality in the same composition. Looking at a group of houses, we see only the outside walls. But there are rich and varied lives within. Looking at a natural scene, we see the visible parts of plants and trees. But there are forcesand patterns playing out beneath the surface at the same time.

“Flight of the Magical Lawnchair”Textile Collage/Art Quilt, 29.5” x 46” — “Flight of the Magical Lawnchair”
Textile Collage/Art Quilt, 29.5” x 46”

Looking at a person, we see just the exterior. But there is a journey, and there are dreams and memories, inside and at work. My artmaking methods are a perfect fit with this interest.

Every piece I create has four component phases. First is concept and composition. I work out ideas in my sketchbook to explore visual arrangements of my ideas. I enjoy working in a size of 36-48” in either dimension, so I frequently mock up the composition on paper at full size. It’s a test of the concept, and the beginning of a pattern for creating and assembling the parts.

Second, I create the fabrics that will be used in the composition. I begin with blank cotton muslin and blank sheer polyester. The fabrics are printed by hand as monotypes, or as relief prints, or handpainted, stenciled, stamped, or resist-imaged. I frequently mix up techniques on each fabric piece. I create fabric for a specific work. Generally, there is fabric left over. So, the leftover pieces from previous pieces may also be used in a new piece. My stash of printed fabrics is a favorite resource.

Third, I collage. I use acrylic-based medium for collage so that the artwork is archival and everything is compatible with acrylic paint. Sheer pieces are collaged to a heavier backing to be stabilized. Cut pieces are collaged as applique.

Finally, I machine stitch. I use stitching as a method of joining sections together. And on almost every piece I add patterns of machine stitching for texture and depth. The finishing is also done by machine stitch; sewn strip binding is turned for a finished edge, and the assembled work is fabric-backed with a rod pocket for hanging presentation.

I have created and experimented with other artmaking methods. Working with textiles and collage is where I find the best expression for my ideas and where I am most at home.

What the child saw, what the child revealed

June 7, 2018

I was organizing works-in-progress in my studio this afternoon and picked up the piece that includes this crouching child drawing on the ground. Where had I just seen this child?

Aaahhhh… the beach. I was in New Smyrna this morning to deliver some work to Arts on Douglas Gallery. Beforehand I gave myself the treat of some morning beach time and a nice walk in the water. The weather was perfect and it felt wonderful.

From my post on a sandbar I looked back at the beach to watch the earnestness of a toddler, crouching, just like the pose in my quilt sketch. She was wearing a bonnet. She had beautifully chubby little legs. She squatted so that her bottom was touching the cool water, and she was completely absorbed in… something. It might have been watching ripples. It might have been a mark she made in the sand. It might have been a little crab. Or maybe the simple delight of wiggling toes and watching the sand move. From my position on the sandbar, I could not tell.

It made no difference. It was something important to her. She had discovered something and decided it was fascinating and worthy of her full attention.

I remember. In fact, as I call upon my own childhood the memories that are most real to me are times of independent absorption like that. I loved to work with crayons. I cut out and played with paper dolls. Outdoors, I would make small creations of twigs and grass and stones to make houses.

As I have drawn on memories and dreams to develop my current body of work dealing with home, the crouching child, absorbed in her drawing, seemed a perfect symbol to include. Incorporated into a composition of house and tree forms, she is a vehicle to lead a viewer to remembering. Just as I could not determine the exact task of my little friend at the beach today, the exact purpose or subject matter of this crouching, drawing child is unspecified.

But through her, we can wonder. And we can remember.

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I STILL wonder about the people across the street. Do you?

June 2, 2018

Do you still carry with you – as in your pocket - images from childhood?

Thinking about one of my earliest art quilts, “Wondering About the People Across the Street,” I discovered this wonderful quotation from Robert Penn Warren about the strength of childhood memories:

“When you are nine years old, what you remember seems forever; for you remember everything and everything is important and stands big and full and fills up Time.”

I can still remember houses on the street where I lived. I remember walking past them in the evening and looking in the windows. I believe it was part of the process of sorting out my place in the world.

Was my family the same as other families?
What would it be like living in somebody else’s house?
How did I feel about my own home and my place in it?

I created “Wondering about the People Across the Street” in 2014. I had not begun the current series about home, but certainly the memory of childhood was in my mind and urging me to create something. I was drawn to bold coloring book colors to emphasize the childlike quality of the memory. And I wanted the figure on the porch to be a simple silhouette. She is both my childhood self and every other child.

Today, I am still interested in what’s behind windows and inside homes. As Robert Penn Warren wrote, “What you remember seems forever.”

Here’s a detail of a work in progress in my studio now that reveals my ongoing wondering about life beyond the windows.

Here’s the completed work form 2014, "Wondering about the People Across the Street.” It’s in the journeys and stories gallery of my website, HERE

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What happens if I actually read -- and follow -- my own “Notes to Self?”

May 16, 2018

I started this week with a note-to-self about content.

Working in the studio, it is easy to get involved in process and technique. That’s the day-to-day work of artmaking. But, I felt the need this week to remind myself, to remember, that it’s the thought and memories that are the whole reason for artmaking.

I have a number of works-in-progress right now, all dealing with the concept of home. Home is what you remember. Because this is such a personal subject matter, a number of times I have been absolutely stopped short by an image.

When I was creating the art quilt of row houses, I was overwhelmed by nostalgia. I grew up in that neighborhood. I have walked a sidewalk in front of those homes and looked in the windows. I rode my bike in the alley behind the houses. To see those images come to life on my worktable was an act of remembering.

When I created the art quilt based on photos of an abandoned house n South Carolina, I remembered standing there by the side of the road. I remember now the smell of pine and the sound of the pine needles beneath my feet. It was an off-the-beaten path road with little traffic. The house was overgrown with vines; the roof was gone. A fire, probably. I found it hauntingly beautiful, rich with somebody else’s life and memories.

This week, I’ve tried to give myself time to have some of those stop-dead-in-my-tracks moments on purpose. The shapes of houses. A small child drawing. A distant house through the trees. A large detailed bird nest. All are filled with meaning. I don’t want to get too busy to see and remember.

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