Vook Bebiew X

As we rebel against beauty, the issue of "design" comes in: not design as composition, but design as - I'm sorry! - a judgement call.
My senior art project in college was my hand-built coil ceramics that were totally non-functional, but meangingful - like a sculpture - and completely unique, but the only hint of beauty I could ascribe to them was an earthy but sparkly glaze that a fellow student-gal kindly lent me. I applied it in a couple different hues, to all the pieces. "Rule-wise" there was no glaze required, but something within judged the whole design as insignificant, if it didn't have at least an attempt at beauty.
That's a judgement call, and that's where the Da-Da ists made their departure. They moved into left brain. They made left-brain choices that became so extreme that they could declare that "extremity" is art, that contrast is art, that anything displayed could be art. But I say:
No design. No beauty.
No standards.
Little art.

Gridlock!

Let's take a piece of graph paper. Now, graph paper is not what we normally think of as paper on which we render art, but I want to show you something, and you guessed it, it's regarding two dimensions. (Granted, graph paper particularly screams "two dimensions!")

Think about a repeating pattern of your own choice. It will wind up looking like a repeating pattern on a surface design, or on a piece of fabric. Connecting-tiles comes to mind, or even the lowly linoleum patterns. Design one pattern, or simply pick a very basic design like a music staff, or a simple logo that you are familiar with, or a triangle within a circle, or vice versa, etc.

Now decide how big a rectangle or square you want to use on your graph paper for this repeating design. For example a one-inch square, or a two-inch square, or a rectangle 1"by 2".

Soon you will see, with repeating your "design-logo" throughout the squares or the rectangles you have chosen, what your two-dimensional grid looks like, or your "linoleum," or your surface design on your fabric.

More on Collage

I wanted to talk about glue......I spend half my life researching glue and taking glue-polls, and shopping for, and "asking around" about glue! I find that glue is like technology - blink once and there's a new, more updated, stickier, more user-friendly glue out there. It's either transparent or it dries transparent, or it's blue because you want to see where it is, or it comes out of a tiny tip, or it has its own brush, or it's like a jar of jelly.....But I'll tell you: the easiest way I've found to do collages is to paint the whole page with Mod Podge glue, and then go for it. Needless to say, you might want to make a generalized and loose "placement map" first, on your work table next to the collage, with your cut-outs and items and pix, but you will find that you and the glue will make the final and most artistic decision!..........Paint the page with Mod Podge and then start with the biggest pieces that you want to put on there, placing them for posterity - but you can do this, once again, in the blink of an eye, and be sure you get it all down and as smoothly as possible - because the glue will begin to dry if you take too long! Then, if you feel the glue is no longer tacky, paint the whole page again with the Mod Podge and go for the next smaller size, and so on, to the smallest size. Remember ModPodge dries transparent, which is one of its wonderful, wonderful qualities.