Between Make-Believe and Memory

Today I am doing some looking back. Back into make-believe. Back into memory.

As I recall being a young girl, I remember how powerful the world of make-believe was for me. I frequently played alone, with paper dolls, Barbies and drawing pads to create new universes and new stories.

“Between Make-Believe and Memory” is a quilt I completed this year that walks into this memory world. I am so pleased that it was recently accepted into the SAQA traveling exhibit, “Connections,” which will premiere at the International Quilt Festival, Houston 2021 and travel for about two years.

The beginning of this work was my discovery of the photo of the rowhouses. (© 2014 Alana Semuels, as originally published in The Atlantic, used with permission.) It’s very powerful. These row houses are in downtown Baltimore, the city where I grew up. My family also lived in a row house neighborhood. It was not the same as this one; this neighborhood is older and has clearly fallen on hard times. Still, the image evoked a pang of recognition. Bricks. Concrete sidewalks. Cracks. It spoke to me at once as a way into the exploration of traveling back to childhood stories.

I was interested in using the sidewalk cracks as a way to bridge the divide between the two realities. I monotype printed cotton muslin with a very drab grey-brown color to match the sidewalks in the photo. There is a clear vertical line of delineation through the piece, but it is crossed over by the sidewalk texture and cracks.

I was pleased with the way the sidewalk texture interacts with the little girl’s shadow. Lightly painting the shadow shape allowed the texture I had created with machine stitching to show through. They are now actually a part of the little girl.

What is the meaning of the section with gold and green and tree forms?

It is intentionally undefined. The lines suggest trees, but they are not a literal forest. This is the world of make-believe.

Beneath the row houses, the roots were printed with a screen of linear tree-like lines that mirrors the make-believe section. The underground life of the houses. The inhabitants of the houses. What’s remaining now that they are gone.

The surface of this work is very much like a painting, although it is constructed as a layered and stitched quilt. The house photograph was transferred to muslin manually with acrylic medium. It is stiff and created a good surface for the acrylic paint touch-ups I did on the surface.

I am so grateful for the opportunities provided by SAQA to its artists to stretch by creating works for call-to-entries. I like thinking of this girl traveling to a number of venues, hoping she will speak to those who see the exhibit.

When you enter a juried exhibit, you have to submit an artist statement. Here’s what I said about this quilt:

“I can imagine the insistent pull within a migrating animal to return to its place of origin. I have felt similar longings. Having lived my early childhood in a row house section of Baltimore, I experienced a visceral response to this image of abandoned row houses in a downtown Baltimore neighborhood. Make-believe (my imaginings as a child) and Memory (the real events) live side-by-side, overlap, rearrange and conflate, creating a powerful emotional connection.”

I have explored the journey of a young girl in many ways in my artmaking. If you are interested in seeing more, please visit the Journeys and Stories gallery on my website, HERE.

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

What turned to dust. What blew away. What remained.

As I was working in my studio yesterday I heard a radio story on the changes to America caused by the building of the Interstate highway system. In some places, new commercial centers were created. And in some places, towns were left behind.

I looked at a number of those towns in South Carolina and Georgia last week. Intentionally avoiding the interstate on our ride home to Florida, we drove through town after town. Each had a small central business district of brick buildings. Large glass windows faced what was once the main street. Most of these towns looked like they were barely holding on.

I was intrigued with this view – looking through the window, into the abandoned interior, and through the door and window on the other side

As we drove through the towns to the rural area before arriving at the next name on the map, we passed an occasional small home near the road. I stopped to photograph interesting abandoned homes. Others looked abandoned, but a second look made me stop. “Somebody lives here.”

Where do those people work?
What are their daily lives like?
Did they once go into the small town nearby for shopping and civic life?

What are their memories? What are their dreams?

I love this picture of a back door into the kitchen. The pattern of light makes it look warm and welcoming. Come on in! But this house was quite overgrown and in a state of disrepair close to falling down.

I have held onto the images of these small towns, and I am grateful for my photos to remind me of the feel of them. As an artist I believe it’s important to spend time looking. I hope to be able to see beyond the obvious. It’s important to hold on to the images and turn them over a number of times to discover all that’s there.

Such contrasts. The foliage around this home was verdant and lush. The home itself was dusty and long-empty.

Today I was back in the studio working on some new pieces. As I create work that digs into memories and stories, I want to remember the places I’ve seen and revisit the questions I asked.  Some of the photos will, I hope, become incorporated into future artwork. I will feel a sense of obligation to the images, to use them to cause viewers to question and wonder.

- - - - - - -

A year ago, on a similar drive home through rural South Carolina, I discovered this intriguing building. Somebody once lived there. I was captivated by the vines and trees growing up through the inside.

I created “Something Else will Grow There” based on those photos.

“Something Else Will Grow There” is on my website, HERE.

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail about once a month. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

---

Two Unanswered Questions

The rhythm of printmaking by hand lends itself to contemplation. Once I am in printing mode, I find that I am both working with my hands and going elsewhere inside.

December 23 was a printmaking morning for me, and also a day of thinking. Thirty two years ago on that day my daughter was born. How has that passage of time and the accumulation of experience and memory occurred?

I do not write this in the sense of, “Wow! Time sure does fly!”  That, of course, is something we all experience.

I am wondering about the mechanism of memory and time. Are there specific cells in my brain which hold specific pictures and sounds? As all of our body cells are dying and recreating constantly, how, then, do we retain those memories? Where are they?

Thirty two years ago my daughter was a wonderful new being — warm, squirming, fascinating, and, as I realized I actually knew nothing about babies, a little terrifying. Today she is a warm and wonderful young woman. Such transformation, such experiences.

Exactly how all this occurs is my first unanswered question. (Admittedly, a large and vague question. The stuff of science.)

What to do with it is the second. (The stuff of art)

I take my artmaking seriously. I believe I am doing my best, most interesting  and most meaningful work when it digs at least a little below surface and aesthetic considerations and touches meanings or memory and experience. Each of us, when we create, is bringing to the work all that we are, all that we know, and all that we don’t know.

Can my work be both visually compelling and thought-provoking?

Can I create work that touches memory and experience in another person?

Does the work need representational subject matter to do that? Can abstract forms and colors communicate as well?

The unfolding and continuing of this second question is what keeps me interested.

Below: A few works that felt, as I created them,
drawn from inner experience.

“Find Something Real to Remember” (DETAIL) On my web site, HERE

“Where You Have Long Since Forgotten” On my web site HERE

“Neither Up Nor Down” on my web site HERE

“Flight of the Magical Lawnchair” On my web site HERE

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail every two to three weeks. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

---

Speaking of Mary Poppins…

Thinking about my art talk tomorrow at Arts on Douglas Gallery, I remembered today the movie “Saving Mr. Banks,” a wonderful on-screen portrayal of P.L. Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books. It is providing a vision.

In the screen version, one of the opening scenes shows Travers as a girl, a close-up shot of her lying in a field of grass constructing a tiny house out of twigs and grass. She was making a little home. The unfolding of the plot revealed how much she needed a make-believe home, because her real home life was so full of hurt and sadness.

Emma Stone portrays P.L. Travers as an adult during the transformation of her Mary Poppins books into Disney’s well-know musical movie version. It was a heart-wrenching journey for Travers, as her story became everything she did not want it to be. In one poignant scene, she leaves a stressful meeting and retreats to a place outdoors, sits on the grass, and begins to construct a tiny home. A refuge. I was sobbing and sniffling!

The Mary Poppins stories are not autobiographical. But their essence was informed by the author’s life. She took what she had experienced and translated it into her art: children’s stories. A few details were specific. An Aunt who came to visit and take care of her family was a non-nonsense umbrella-carrying woman. Mary Poppins? But, for the most part, the author’s works are a combination of dreams, memories, emotions and her artist’s craft to create a new reality.

This has been my experience in creating the series “Home is What You Remember.” It’s about home. And my experience of home, with an intentional memory of a child’s way of looking at things, has informed the images and the process. While not strictly autobiographical, it reveals realities I know to be true:

Outside and Inside do not always match.

It may or may not be possible to know what’s inside by looking from without.

Homes can be fragile.

Things change.

People experience home in time: as experiences unfold, and later in memory.

We carry our homes inside us.

The lives of the people in homes are varied, colorful, richly textured.

And, in all of this, I hope to use my artmaking methods and abilities to create realities that are interesting, pleasing to look at and discover, and offer new discoveries over time.

All the works in the series “Home is What You Remember” are on my web site, HERE.

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail every two to three weeks. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

---

A Journey into Memory. Then Waffles. And an Exhibition.

This evening I’ll be standing in a beautiful gallery with my artwork filling the walls, watching visitors and patrons and engaging in conversation abut the work. It’s what artists work for, and it represents a year of creating this particular body of work.  So we started the day with waffles. Blueberry. And bacon.

I am thinking of the many stages in the process. I loved the side-of-the-road inspiration in rural South Carolina where I stopped, stood in the quiet of pines and looked into the heart of a small abandoned house. Its insides were filled with vines and saplings. The roof was gone. The door was rusted and peeling. It provided a strong inspiration for me for the body of work about HOME. I took photos. Those photos are actually transferred into the fabric that I used in several works.

I am thinking of the memories of my own childhood homes, and what it took to look deliberately at those memories and to make sense of the stories. Every artist draws on their own story, and I have drawn deeply from my own. But, I am not a fiction writer nor am I creating an autobiography. I have worked to translate personal story into interesting and thought-provoking images that will speak to patrons with all kinds of backgrounds. When a piece of my art is invited into someone’s home, I hope for it to provide new meaning and something new to see for a long time.

Art Quilt Every One Has a Different Story (Detail) inspired by my childhood row house home

I am thinking about all the logistics and practical aspects of creating a body of work. I started twelve months ago with a schedule and a series of sketches. I have addressed storage, transportation and shipping issues, and all the hands-on work of creating the pieces.

Now it’s there, on the walls. The waffles are gone, but I still have an invitation to offer. Please visit Arts on Douglas Gallery in New Smyrna Beach to view “HOME is What You Remember.” If you are not in Central Florida, I hope you will enjoy a visit to the gallery of these works on my web site, HERE.

Some in-the-works and sneak peeks below. I’m ready.

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail every two to three weeks. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

---

Well, how would YOU go about drawing seven sheep?

There’s so much to learn in first grade! Not just for the students. But for me.

I see little minds putting together ideas and giving voice to their imaginations. In the time I spend one-one or in small groups I come away filled with stories. My several hours each week volunteering in a first grade class fill me with wonder.

Last week we were responding to the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Students identified what happened at the beginning: the boy was under the tree, bored, and thinking of how to play a trick on everybody. After writing a sentence, students drew a picture. I was with two wonderful little girls, each of whom wanted to draw the boy with his sheep – all seven of them – because seven were depicted in the storybook.

The first girl delighted in the creation of each sheep individually. She sang a little song (“Sheepie, sheepie, la la la”) as she drew. Each animal was lovingly drawn in full: fluffy body, bump for the head, two more bumps for ears, four sticks for legs. A delighted flourish of her hand, and then on to the next sheep.

The second girl also enjoyed this project, but went about it completely differently. She created a sheep assembly line. First: the body. Seven bodies in a row. Then the head: seven heads in a row. Then seven sets of ears and seven sets of legs. Done. She is a very serious little girl.

Since last week, I have thought a lot about these two wonderful girls. Where did those two completely different plans of action come from?

How amazing that each came to the project with her own perspective, that each created her own plan of action, that each found pleasure in the task and the way she was pursuing it.

When children draw, it is a way to order their experiences, to give voice through imagination to what they wonder about. I believe it is one of the ways they make sense of the world.

And I remember doing that.

(The artwork in the heading of this blog post is a detail from my textile collage, “Find Something Real to Remember.” It’s on my website, HERE)

Revisiting the Night

I recently submitted this work for an exhibit. That process caused me to look at it closely again, as it was on my computer screen in detailed enlargements. I remembered the process.

Some things went as planned. Some things I had not expected.

From the beginning, I knew I wanted the feel of nighttime. I wanted to recreate the sensation of being outside on a cool evening, dipping one’s toes into the night air.

I had a nice reference photo to work from. My neighbor, a lovely young woman, had come over to my house to pose for me. The porch is my porch. But, in the process of creating the composition, I did some angle adjusting and some perspective playing, making it more interesting than the original photo had been.

I worked almost exclusively with sheer fabrics as I printed the images. This created a watercolor-wash feel that worked well with the feel of dream and memory I hoped to create.

I worked this piece in squares. That’s not my normal way of constructing pieces. But it created some tensions that I found interesting. I don’t think the squares jump out immediately, but they are there, as a background architecture behind the trees. The trees overlapping the grid and working in relation to it create a nice tension of foreground and background. And, because I did not use squares in the section with the young woman, she is in a reality somewhat separated from everything else.

Finally, as I look again closely at this work I think of the woman it depicts. What is she thinking? What is she remembering? That is the mystery of the work

Becoming One With The Night  2017  35" x 45"
In the Journeys and Stories and Galleries Gallery, HERE

LIGHT. PATTERN. KEEP LOOKING

I love this photograph.

In the midst of creating a body of work involving windows, homes, and the complex relationship between inside and outside, this simple image has captured my imagination.

I can envision this composition re-created in a simply painted style, pale color blocks  suggesting the subtle light through the window.

This is a photo of my own home. I have moved within the last year and I snapped this shot as part of cleaning and moving out. It was a happy departure, a part of moving into a welcomed next chapter. Still, I loved this home while I was there.

This image lets the light in, but we do not see the window.

Sometimes windows reveal. Sometimes they obscure.

Windows are invitations to look in, to see what there is inside.

Windows are made for looking through and, therefore, are a good metaphor for time and memory: we look through our past, we look through our memories, to see what was there.

A window in an unexpected place is jarring. We have been culturalizd to know what windows are for, and immediately look at them or through them. But, in an undefined or ambiguous setting, they raise questions.

Finally, the window itself is a pattern. Here, the simple blocks create a geometric pattern on the floor. The neat lines capture the light.

Looking through the windows of remembrance may leave an imprint on our understanding in much the same way.

Keep looking.

Detail of windows: digital image on fabric, collaged with other fabrics using surface design techniques. From "So It Will Not Break in Two," art quilt. This work is on my web site in the "Home is What You Remember" Gallery, HERE.

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail every two to three weeks. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

---

Deep Down Roots… Where do they Go?

Deeply rooted in our homes are memories… histories…stories…   (Video below)

This work has recently been completed. I finished up the binding and backing. This gave me a chance to look at it again and remember some of what I thought about as I was creating it.

I am interested in combining realities. First in this piece is the combining of photographic reality with patterned monotypes. The photo transfer appears inside the house (the closeups of twigs) and also in the underground section (the pattern of water). I created patterns of hand-printed fabrics to be a visual metaphor for the richness and complexity of all that’s gone before.

The use of the spatial plane has also been mixed up a bit in this work. This functions in one sense as a landscape; there is a horizon line and the house has suggestions of perspective.  At the same time, it’s a flat plane, not a realistic foreground-background. I view these roots and all the underground patterns like a cut-away view, as if we took a vertical slice of reality and could see above and below at the same time. Yellow sky above. Patterned blue textures below.

This cutaway view then also suggests the passage of time. The roots are not reaching down into a static moment now. They are reaching into all the history and story that compromise the home.

I remember that I started this work when I needed an emotional respite. Just before this, I had created a work that is quite chaotic. Trees grow up and uproot homes and the mood is dark, like a fairy tale story. I felt the need for a new palette and was drawn to thee colors as a soothing change. But, as it developed, I began to see that the complexity of the patterns created an opening to more meaning. Some family histories are warm and cherished. Some entail secrets and hurts. The exact nature of the past is not defined at in this work.

Like real life… It’s complicated.

Here’s a video with closeups and some insights into the work in progress.

What the child saw, what the child revealed

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.

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail every two to three weeks. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

Abandoned… Rediscovered… Remembered…

Discovering this abandoned house in South Carolina was an art inspiration. I blogged about in January, writing that the experience of finding this spot was a gift discovered by taking the long way, the off-the-highway path driving home to Florida.

Since then the house stayed on my mind. A work-in-progress in the studio now is beginning to take the images and create a new reality. (Video below in this blog post.)

What was so compelling, standing there by the house, was looking through the door and the broken windows and seeing trees and vines growing up inside the house, filling it. In a strange way, although the growth filled the space, it emphasized the emptiness. Homes are expected to hold people and life, not overgrown vines.

What interested me was this feeling of unreality. Instead of depicting the house realistically as we discovered it, I wanted to translate it into a dream-like memory.

Photos of the paint-peeled door and the overgrown windows have been transferred onto muslin. (I use a gel medium transfer from a laser color printout, pieced together to fill the size I need. These are tedious, but I like the final effect.)

The photographic images are being placed in a childlike, two-dimensional house shape, along with other fabrics, colors and textures. I will be adding tree forms behind to recreate the sense of loneliness the place held for me.

As I work on all the pieces in my “Home is what you Remember” series, I am trying to listen. To the images. To the memories. To what they stir inside me.

                  What happens when the people leave the house?
                  Something else will grow there.

You can watch the process unfold in this video.

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail every two to three weeks. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL