Very UN my iuoma aesthetic...

[Claire (aka Cleo)]

but I just unearthed and posted this old article on my metalwork if any one's interested...

http://www.studiocleo.com/studio/portfolio/disgardingLrg.html

[Claire (aka Cleo)]

(shld read "your mind")

ok, the word is "vision," or "voice"...

Herre's a piece DK made from some tape she tore from an envelope I sent her a while back:

You gonna tell me there's not a (very strong!) sense of balance in that?!

(A tad funny too, I did this at about the same time:

[Claire (aka Cleo)]

ha ha ha! No problem DVS, your vision & words always interest me also...

I agree w/ all you're saying, but there is a distinction in my evolution, as it were. A lot of the RC artists I didn't like actually - I found them a bit cold. Lissitsky was different - he had a sense a space, there was more poetry in his work, shall we say. I suppose the RC reference should have been attended by a qualifier, as it were. I believe you can see it's influence in a lot of my work (esp. '80s stuff - many elements, a bit busy imo) Construction, literally as well as formally, was central earlier. Nonetheless, I was particularly referring to the later metal work below, and it was quite far from my mind by that time. Even though the pieces contain less elements/detail they are nonetheless static, but about movement at the same time, flow. (I suppose, simplistically, that is the curve vs the right angle). The "more intuitive" quote is much more apt. re my approach to material. You see, in the earlier pieces, my materials & craft were central to the work - a lot of what it was about (construction); in the later, the materials facilitated bringing the form in my mind to fruition (secondary). Yes, I talk/iterate too much I know, but to me, whereas there were strong formal/structural considerations earlier, later, well, I wasn't thinking about it, trying - I had simply honed a certain sensibility of consideration of elements - it was a natural part of my visual/sensual vocabulary by that time. There it is: the consideration was more sensual & less cerebral in terms of "This is design!" (I had been studying architecture & adored modernism earlier). It became about the object/form in itself, in a more archetypal way, as it were. As I noted in the article, the African art show had a large influence then.

Interesting, I really don't agree about DK though. Yes, sometimes her work just seems like (unbalanced) chaos, but in many (much more than not) pieces also I see composition. It may not be conscious, but it's there in her vision - I believe she knows, somewhere in that luscious mind of hers, that X works with X: "just here." If she wasn't aware of it on some level, I imagine that much of her work wouldn't be so beautiful to me. I see a lot of "chaotic" work on yoma that really does just look like chaos, and I don't respond to it at all. I sense no aesthetic present (at least that I can see) W/ her, I would say its the Raushenberg (sp?) sensibility. What makes his work so outstandingly strong? He has that sensibility. (Yea, tell me I'm a friggin' snot, but to me, you can see the difference between an artist, and someone who makes collages. That is not a value judgement/inferring one's better than the other - it's simply a different thing...apples and oranges, you know...)

Eh, always love sparrin' wit cha cher (I'll take argument & talkin'  "de trop!" any day!!)(Helps that I love you mind too, of course!%_^)

[De Villo Sloan]

Claire, I tell myself I'll use some restraint & someday let you get in the last word. This form/content issue is the dog chasing its tail for sure. One usually ends up biting their tongue.

I pick up from your discourse "balance" & "Russian constructivism," which is where my mind was when I made the formalist observation about your work. I come at it from a slightly different approach but the same territory, which is the Russian Formalism of the early 20th century, in particular the linguist Roman Jacobson who set the stage for Structuralism, which can't be viewed in any other way but as an intense Formalism for analysis of the work. 

Bottom line: That viewpoint defined a successful work of art as "a unity of oppositions." That requires attention in the work to balancing polarities & likely coherence & closure. You can't avoid a careful look at all the nuances of formal elements if you have those models in mind. I think you have an awareness of that in your work. You confirmed that, in fact.

With Diane, what an interesting m-a example you chose, her work inspired me to coin "D-Khaos" because I saw a lack of formal organization & a disinterest in coherence so complete it was worthy of note. DK & Claire are opposites on a profound level in my (admittedly sometimes eccentric) viewpoint, should someone wish to compare the two.

Claire, I shall Cease & Desist here. Thank you again for this thought-provoking blog.

[Claire (aka Cleo)]

Thanks again cher -

lol, you got me DVS (he knows just how to play her...%_^)!

Well, I had hoped the art. would actually get to what some of this was about for me & it didn't so I was eager to clarify (frigging expound baby!)

You are sweet mon ami, thanks II/too! Slowly slowly gettin' things set up here...hope to be my regular MA self in a month or so. I received hoards of mail upon my arrival, so the huge back-log may take me the rest of my days to address!

[De Villo Sloan]

Claire, I just finished reading your comments below & both enjoy & agree.

I admit by sliding in "formalist" I had hoped it would cause you to generate one of your, dare I say almost  legendary?, explications. I am a little guilty of what I think they called bear-baiting. Not meant to be Claire-baiting, I was eager to read your views.

Always fascinating, and I have missed you a great deal.

[Claire (aka Cleo)]

Thanks you two. The article bothers me a bit: kind o' corny & full of misquotes - like some 'human interest' story instead of the critique I would have preferred, but whateva oui?

You're right De Villo, there's definitely a very certain aesthetic sensibility that pervades most everything. At this point in time, I don't agree w/ the things I said/was feeling at the time, but I do get it, and it left it's mark, as it were. To me, the word that captures what comes through for me is "balance." I'm not sure how to explain it, but it's just this feeling I get when a piece has achieved it... It's like - well, peace in a way. Almost like it tells me when it works/is done - "this is it." I see that particular "balance" sensibility (as I see it of course) in Eduardo's work and also in DK's. Clarity, as it were, can be balanced; but "messes" also... It's odd, but you just feel it, know...

Have to say the word "formalist" does rather irk me though...%_^ But I get it. For me it's not so much form as a vessel of content often, but rather form AS content (in the later metalwork anyway). (I was a weaver and a potter before I was a metalsmith.) It was about something which felt elemental to me... Do you know what I'm inferring when I talk about knowing something before you know/see it? It's like a form of Recognition even when you have never before encountered this thing. (Socrates purported that all learning was simply a matter of remembering...) It's almost like a genetic memory thing...(harping on all that Jungian symbolism shit %_^) The roots really come from the aesthetic mark which Japan left on me though - that's when I began working with paper. That and Russian constructivism (part. Lissitzky))

[De Villo Sloan]

With the "geometric," I do not see a sharp divide between Claire's "serious" work and her m-a (except materials). IMHO, Claire is a formalist, which maybe comes from working with such solid materials, and the formal sense carries over into her collage, Trashpo, vispo, etc. Nothing wrong with a keen awareness of the forms that are the vessels of content.