Working in a Series?
Why work in a series? This is a question I’ve asked myself from time to time. Certainly, there are many artists who do. Two impressionist examples are Edgar Degas with his young ballerinas and Claude Monet returning again and again to waterlilies. Two women who spring to mind are Georgia O’Keeffe and Bridget Riley. In my world of fiber art, Katie Pasquini Masopust is someone who works in serial series. In other words she explores a series for five or more years and then moves on to the next series.
Isn’t for me
I get it. Serious artists work in series. However, the teenager in me rebelled, with that long, drawn-out, put upon bo…RING, when I first heard this advice. There were far too many techniques and inspirations distracting me, begging to be explored.
Surprise! I do work in series
Now that I have been creating art for 35 years, I have learned two things about myself and working in a series. First, my work easily falls into several series. Checkout the galleries on my website for proof. Second, working in a series doesn’t mean you stop exploring ideas and inspiration. In fact, working in a series encourages you to explore new techniques and inspiration. The advantage of working in a series is it gives the framework to build upon.
Last week I shared a small broderie perse piece I created for Cohasset Open Studios. It was easy to pull together and visually successful. I wanted to make one more piece to add to my collection of affordable product. Why not try something similar? However, my fabric stash has very few prints that I could use. I do have scraps sorted by color. What if I simply hand cut out abstract flower shapes and assembled them broderie perse style? As you can see it worked!
I am linking up with Nina Marie’s Off the Wall Fridays.
I don’t know about “SERIOUS artists work in series.” I would say “SOME artists work in series.” I think we all have different creative styles. For every Monet painting water lilies over and over, there is a Leonardo da Vinci who is painting Mona Lisa one day, conducting furtive corpse dissections by night, and then designing a fantastical flying machine the next day!
We could have fun discussing this, Rebecca. It may depend on your a definition of what constitutes a series. I tend to think of it as revisiting a subject time and time again. So, take the young, naked or mostly naked, male and athletic body. da Vinci captured that in paint, marble and drawing many times. Did he feature other things in his artwork? Absolutely. He also had a futuristic, engineering streak. I love his plans for flying machines.