The Via Negativa

Last month I wrote about the process of figuring out who I am if I’m not a weaver. I took heart from the kind and encouraging comments several of you left on that post. I understand my departure from weaving has caused some astonishment among some tapestry colleagues. I’ve heard more than one artist friend say “Are you sure?!?” But as I said to a weaving friend the other day, “When you’re done, you’re done.”

The empty space where my loom used to be. Soon to be occupied by another flat file! Yay!

The via negativa is a theological concept. God cannot be fully known by making positive statements, “God is this. God is that,” but only intuited by making negative ones, “God is not this and not that.” To borrow a phrase from an anonymous medieval mystic, we grope our way in a cloud of unknowing.

Likewise I’ve been groping my way in a cloud of unknowing along several potential paths in the studio, and mostly finding that it’s Not this. Or That. Or This Other Thing.

I’ve been obsessed by lace, so I signed up to learn bobbin lace with two different teachers, both with decades’ experience and excellent skills and offering two very different approaches. I dreamed of making work like that of the amazing Pierre Fouché. I purchased the lacemaker’s pillow, and the skinny little bobbins, and special pins and the pin lifting tool and a book of patterns and so on. And I discovered I just don’t have it in me anymore to do any extremely slow, fiddly technique that makes my shoulders tight. I also know at some cellular level that I will not live long enough to reach the level of proficiency in bobbin lace in order to make what I’d like to make.

Once these bobbins got out of order it seemed impossible to put them back into sequence, even with the help of my nifty crocheted bobbin holder. So onto the shelf it went.

So . . . what about crochet lace? I’ve known how to crochet since 7th grade, and there is some extremely fine and beautiful lace crochet work being done now. But that fine and beautiful work is also done with tiny hooks and narrow threads. Again, sore shoulder. So, not lace crochet. Sigh.

Sample of crocheted cholla branch on left. Start of another branch on right, abandoned due to shoulder pain before it could be shaped.

Next up: needle lace. We’ll see how that goes. ;)

I very much enjoyed the Red Cliff Paper Retreat at Helen Hiebert’s studio that I did in August. It was focused this year on paper folding, so when I saw these beautiful folded tesselations online I impulsively signed up for the free Advent of Tess project and purchased special pre-creased hexagonal papers to learn how to fold tesselations in preparation for the December class. And I discovered that, guess what, folding a piece of paper 5” wide into a million (okay, 24) equal divisions is not that much fun for me, and way too math-y, even for this former weaver. So, no shade on the extremely clear and proficient teacher there, but no tesselations for me.

Again I learn this crucial lesson: Not every art form I admire is mine to do. Repeat as needed: Not every art form I admire is mine to do.

There have been some tantalizing successes too. I’m exploring other ways of making art in and on paper. I’ve taken a couple of my gel plate monoprints and crumpled them using the momogami technique that creates supple, fabric-like paper that can be stitched into. That’s been intriguing, but it’s early days there.

Gel plate monoprint, crumpled and stitched

I’ve become somewhat obsessed with dried cholla branches lately, attracted I guess to their laciness. For those not living in the Southwest, cholla cacti are everywhere. Sometimes they blossom with breathtaking fuchsia flowers, but more often we see their dead and dying, not terribly shapely, forms littering the landscape.

Cholla on its way out

Healthy cholla in bloom. I wonder, is this blossom the origin of the term desert rose?

These fragments of dried cholla branches looked like text to me, so I glued them to handmade paper I made at the Paper Retreat.

Using the gel plate, I’m experimenting with lace stencils, charcoal sketch transfers, and just yesterday, direct monoprints. Again, early days, but I’m excited by the possibilities, and all of this may yet feed into future paper weaves, artist’s books, and mixed-media prints.

The very first experiment with direct monoprinting over a charcoal transfer on the gel plate. More studies to follow!

I share all these stops and starts and misfires to offer encouragement and comraderie to anyone out there who might also be floundering a bit at the moment, not sure what to do next and going off every which way. It’s all good. Nothing you learn, even by the via negativa, is ever wasted. So go down those rabbit trails. . . one of them will eventually lead somewhere good. (And remember: not every artwork you admire is yours to do!)