Watermelon Patch

Watermelon patch; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2016

During the high humidity and temperatures of late August and early September, hubby and I took to evening walks when the summer swelter had abated somewhat. One evening I spotted a mysterious front yard plant whose leaves intrigued me. Hubby knew what it was in an instant: a watermelon plant. The light was dim and I didn't have a camera, so I had to go back the next afternoon in the unfortunate heat, but it was worth it. 

I couldn't believe that I had never seen a watermelon plant, even though the fruit is significant to Mennonites and my family. My Opa loved loved loved watermelon. According to family lore, he would stash his crop covered in straw in the hayloft on the ground floor of the barn and disappear after lunch for some secret sweet sustenance. My Thiessen clan would gather for spontaneous Roll Kuchen and Arbuzen (watermelon) suppers. Some Mennonites made watermelon syrup when they had a more than sufficient crop. It's made like maple syrup: take a lot of watermelon pulp and boil it down until it forms a syrup, then can it as you would peaches or cherries. Watermelon syrup cake is mighty delicious, as is pickled watermelon.

The long story short is that I have a new leaf to explore and interpret for my accidental Mennonite series and it's a very satisfying leaf to work with.

Studio Series: Chortitza oak leaf silhouette

Chortitza oak leaf silhouette © Karen Thiessen, 2016

Twyla Tharp, via her excellent book The Creative Habit, taught me to dedicate a box or two to each significant project. I have one for each my tags project and an ongoing Mennonite project. The latter box gets more action and is filled to the brim. The other day I was searching for a specific image and after some silent swearing, I found it in another place. There is something to be said for the collision of images in a very full box: It can be great for ideas to emerge unexpectedly. 

That being said, I realized that I needed a categorized repository of images. Deep in my office closet teetering on the top shelf, I found an empty binder and my filing cabinet offered up some empty page protectors and some page dividers. With these previously used office supplies I set to create order. It's still a work in progress, but I'm excited to be able to simply go to the "flora and fauna" section for my drawings of wheat, Chortitza oak leaves, and outlines of doves. For now my images of the Red Gate mingle in the "places" section with outlines of Pelee Island, and copies of Mennonite villages. In time, I may move the Red Gate images to a "structures" section that I hope to fill with images and drawings of windmills and the like. The "words" section is filling up, whereas the "food" section contains one lone drawing of Zwieback. The above image of the Choritza oak leaf silhouette will be filed in the "flora and fauna" section once I've finished writing this post.

Studio Series: black & white collage I

black & white collage 1 © Karen Thiessen, 2016

Three weeks of three day mini-retreats reset my studio practice. I completed two dresses and have started to wear them. While sewing the first one, it didn't occur to me to test how it functioned before cutting out the second and third dresses. I haven't yet sewn the third dress and I have enough fabric to restyle the pockets. Although I don't like the pockets in the first two dresses, the garments still feel good and fit properly. Tackling and completing a host of personal projects has injected new energy and confidence in my studio practice. I knew it would. Above is a collage that I did in my sketchbook yesterday.

Studio Series: Work In Progress

WIP collage 3'X4' © Karen Thiessen, 2016

This is week two of three weeks of mini-studio retreats. The above 3' X 4' unfinished collage is the largest that I have ever made. I am using papers that I have screen printed as well as found papers. I need to live with it for a while to see where it wants to go. It needs taming, but how I do not yet know.

WIP collage 3'X4' © Karen Thiessen, 2016

Once it is finished, I will hang it on the wall where it is propped. The hall is a busy, narrow space so I collaged on 1/4" plywood and will either hang it with metal mirror clips or I'll screw it to the wall with brass screws.

Studio Series: Zwieback screen prints

Zwieback screen prints a © Karen Thiessen, 2016

Early this year I set up my ironing table to be a print table. It's only five feet long, so I can only print small runs of textiles. Of my designs that I've printed so far, the Zwieback pattern is my favourite. It's looser and more open than my usual designs. Layering the prints in various colours has been fun. I'm printing on cotton fabrics that I dyed using plant stuffs: black walnut, avocado pits and skins, and honey locust bean pods.

Zwieback screen prints b © Karen Thiessen, 2016

Above is a printed textile in progress. I'm printing with Speedball fabric inks on cotton that was dyed with honey locust bean pods. On its own, the honey locust colour colour is rather bland, but is a nice backdrop to colours like off-white, mocha, and rust. I'm curious to see how the Zwieback prints change once I stitch them into tags or piece them into larger textiles.

Studio Series: Mennonite series tags

Mennonite series tags; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2016

Off and on, I've been playing with words and symbols of my Dutch German (Russian) Mennonite material culture for more than twenty years. Until I discovered the tag format I hadn't been able to pull it together. Above is a random assortment of the strongest tags pinned to my studio wall. I'll present them differently in a gallery setting with proper spacing, probably in a long line and I'll install them with specimen pins.

Mennonite series tags detail; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2016

I have over fifty completed Mennonite material culture tags, but only thirty work well together. The collection now has a voice and an aesthetic has emerged.

Mennonite series detail; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2016

As of this week I have thirty textile tags set up for stitching. The collection is growing. It's about time.

Studio Series: future tags + small disaster

Great Opa B's notes; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2016

Last fall my mom handed me an old cookie tin that contained documents belonging to my late great-grandparents. One item was an old notebook that my great grandfather kept. He wrote with a fountain pen and his hand-writing is elegant and beautiful. Unfortunately it's written in an old German script that I'm unable to read. I scanned a few pages and digitally printed them onto fabric. After rinsing the fabric, I painted it with washes of walnut ink and black tea. In a few days I'll rinse the fabric again and then stitch them. Working with my great-grandfather's words is very special.

To digitally print the text, I used C. Jenkins Miracle Fabric Sheets and they are best used for black-and-white images (colour is a bit washed out on them). I thought it would be cool to feed my own fabric through the printer, so I ironed grocery store freezer paper to fabric that I cut to size and fed it through the printer. Big mistake. The fabric came away from the freezer paper and wrapped around the printer's roller. Thankfully my very patient husband is mechanically adept. With great care he took the printer apart, fished out the fabric, and put it all back together and it works! I will never do that again. C. Jenkins sells a strong freezer paper, but I am not going to test fate (although I am slightly tempted).

Studio Series: Mennonite screen prints

Mennonite series Red Gate and threshing stone pattern screen prints; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2016

My ironing table doubles as a print table, but I've never used it to screen print. A first step in setting up the table was to clear the foot high piles of fabric that covered most of it. To accomplish this, I went through most of my fabric bins and did a significant purge so that the fabric on the ironing table finally had a proper home. Two friends will be the beneficiaries of my deaccessioned stash. 

I hadn't printed on fabric since my Sheridan days. My husband set up a hose in the laundry room sink so that I was able to wash my screens with enough pressure to prevent clogging. My husband held the screen while I printed. We make a great team. I printed on commercial and naturally dyed fabrics. The honey locust bean pod dyed fabric looks great printed with rust fabric ink.

Mennonite series Mulberry leaf pattern screen prints; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2016

While I was printing fabric, I printed some paper so that I can collage with it. What I learned from going through my bins was to buy and print fabrics in small, usable quantities. I print larger quantities of paper because collaging is more immediate than hand-stitching fabric.

Studio Series: printmaking

Birch-dulse-o-rama © Karen Thiessen, 2015

My fascination and appreciation of leaves has not waned. The above print is an amalgam of a collographed birch leaf and a screen print (the chartreuse flowers). They are both printed on foxed pages of Mennonite books. I printed these during my autumn Printmaking class. The winter session class begins soon and I have fifteen new designs to print.

Studio Series: Screenprint fragments

Screen print edges collage © Karen Thiessen, 2015

When I screen print small or fragile papers, I tape them to a larger piece of bristol and layers of prints accumulate along the edges. Here's a collage of those edges. I've been very busy!

Studio Series: work in progress

Mennonite material culture series in progress © Karen Thiessen, 2015

While I've been moving my Poetic Memory series forward (well over 200 tags are complete!), another series has been almost making itself. Yup, Mennonite elves toil away in the studio when I'm not looking. Well, it seems that way. 

Each body of work that I make has its own rhythm and personality. Some are neat and tidy and emerge on schedule, like a small miracle. One was stubborn and had its own sense of time (the Shadow series). I started playing with making a Mennonite series about fifteen years ago. It wasn't ready. While I was working long hours for my 2013 solo show Unit(y), naturally the Menno series started elbowing its way into my awareness. It's a sneaky beast. 

Above is a random selection of 41 of the Mennonite material culture tags that I've made so far. They aren't optimally arranged or installed. The series needs a better title and I need to triple the amount of work before I have a sense of what it wants to be and where it wants to go. With this series it seems that as long as I'm working on something else, it gets made. 

Life

I've been a bit quiet here in blogland. Real life has been rather busy with studio work, my printmaking class, a visiting artist talk and critique of student work at McMaster University School of the Arts, and more. My parents are in the process of down-sizing, so I now have an old copper boiler and a iron pot that I am dyeing fabrics in and with (pot as mordant). An ancient roll-top desk has taken up residence in my studio. The desk is a magical space that ignites my imagination. My mom also passed on some old family textiles and other family keepsakes (like my great-grandparents' notebooks and passports!!).

Studio Series: Chortitza Oak Leaves prints

Chortitza Oak leaves prints © Karen Thiessen, 2015

Happy days are here again: my printmaking class has resumed for the fall! I'm screen printing as usual, and I'm printing with found materials. My personal leaves of significance project continues in new ways. This summer I visited several Chortitza oak descendants (Quercus robur) here in Southern Ontario and gathered leaves: some to take rubbings from and some to print. To preserve the leaves, I soaked them in a glycerin, water, and surfactant concoction (1 part glycerin to two parts water, plus 3 to 4 drops of castile soap to act as a surfactant) for a week. Once the leaves were preserved, I inked some up with a brayer with black Akua ink and then ran them through a press. In the above photo, you'll see prints on abaca (a.k.a. tea bags), Japanese kozo paper, and old German book pages. My thanks to Christine Mauersberger for the idea to preserve the leaves and then print with them! In the near future, I plan to print with preserved mulberry leaves and birch leaves from the tree that shelters my late-brother's grave, although I'm certain that the birch leaves will be too fine to print with. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Gathie Falk @ BIG in Nova Scotia, MSVU

Gathie Falk, Beautiful British Columbia Thermal Blanket–– Huyen, 1980; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2014

Last September I saw the Big in Nova Scotia exhibition at the Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery near Halifax. The show, curated by Ingrid Jenkner, ran from August 23 to September 28, 2014 and featured the work of nine artists. Painting, sculpture, and textile-based work made within a 33 year time-span (1980 to 2013) were included and, as the title suggests, all the artworks in this exhibition were BIG.

Gathie Falk, Canadian painter, sculptor, and performance artist, was born in 1928 in Alexander, Manitoba to a Russian Mennonite family and currently lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Beautiful British Columbia Thermal Blanket–– Huyen is oil on canvas quilted and stuffed with fibreglass insulation and was purchased by the Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery in 1981. I had the privilege of seeing her retrospective exhibition at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in 2001. 

In addition to Aganetha Dyck, Gathie Falk is another artist of Russian Mennonite descent who has shown me what is possible. In recognition for her contributions to Canadian culture, Falk has been awarded the Order of Canada (1997), the Order of British Columbia (2002), and the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts (2003).

Gathie Falk, Beautiful British Columbia Thermal Blanket–– Huyen, 1980; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2014

I had to spend time with Falk's painted quilt to truly appreciate it. Some works of art grab me immediately, others are a slow seduction.

Gathie Falk, Beautiful British Columbia Thermal Blanket–– Huyen, 1980; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2014

Small details, like the paint texture in the above image, drew me in.

All the photos were taken with permission.

Of Note

1. Radio interview with Aganetha Dyck: CBC Radio Definitely Not the Opera interview with Governor General's Award-winning Winnipeg-based Canadian artist Aganetha Dyck: Aganetha Dyck collaborates with bees. Aganetha is one of my art heroes. She was the first visual artist of Russian Mennonite descent that I knew of and has been a role model of what is possible. The interview is just under 9 minutes long and in it I learned how she has moved an idea forward out of necessity (a bee allergy) and how her glass dress took twelve seasons to make (durational art).

On the hot afternoon of my grandfather's funeral, I learned that Aganetha Dyck won the Canada Council's Governor General's Award for Visual and Media Arts. News of her well-deserved recognition brought comfort during a difficult day.

2. Durational Art: Peter Jacobs' exhibition at Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey of a selection of nearly 3700 collages made every morning for ten years from The New York Times, an X-Acto blade, art pad and glue. It all began with a conversation with his wife Elizabeth, a sculptor, about "the importance of discipline, regularity, and relevancy in art-making" on March 31, 2005. Read more about his daily practice on his blog The Collage Journal.

3. A daily practice: Textile artist Helen Terry writes about her daily practice of mark-making in 40 day stints. She begins this challenge in February, 2015, and continues with a second round in March 2015 where she encounters and works through challenges and frustrations. In May, 2015 she writes about round three of her 40-day daily practice. Her marks are beautiful and she is learning a lot from pushing herself through her perceived failures. I'd like to challenge Helen to look at those "experiments that didn't work ... and couldn't be rescued" with fresh eyes to see how she can wreck them to the point that she saves them.

Quotes: Jan Guenther Braun

""I want you to promise me that you will pick one small, seemingly insignificant thing in your life that you will care about passionately as a craft. It doesn't matter what it is, but I want [you] to promise that you'll pick one thing. Whenever you are feeling uninspired about your own life, you will turn to this art that you've chosen and do it with as much passion as you can muster.""–– Jan Guenther Braun, Canadian author, from Somewhere Else: A Novel, 2008, p. 74. 

Studio Series: Zwieback & textiles

Studio wall and Zwieback © Karen Thiessen, 2015

The Zwieback drawings are further evidence of my Lent 2014 mark-making practice. I see these becoming a two colour silk screen print in the near future. I'd like to make Zwieback again. My husband thinks that this is a very good idea.

Studio Series: Chortitza oak leaf drawings

Chortitza oak leaves drawing © Karen Thiessen, 2014

My Lenten intuitive mark-making practice continues. I drew these colourful Chortitza oak leaves (Quercus robur) while on the phone with family and friends.

Chortitza oak leaf drawing © Karen Thiessen, 2014

I drew this black-and-white Chortitza oak leaf while sitting in church.

Studio Series: Zwieback drawings

Zwieback drawings © Karen Thiessen, 2014

I drew these Zwieback as a continuation of my Lenten intuitive mark-making practice. It's been 275 days since I began and I've practiced almost 190 hours. That's an average of 41 minutes per day.

Zwieback

Making Zwieback with mom; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen's husband, 2014

On a recent visit, my mom saw my dried lumpy Zwieback (purchased at a Mennonite Relief sale) on display under a cloche in my dining room. She told me that the person who made it didn't let it rise properly or didn't use enough flour. Mom has super powers like that. I shared my fantasy of having enough Zwieback to fill a cloche. That's when Superwoman decided that she would teach me how to make them the next morning. We dug the recipe out of a Mennonite cookbook and I made copious notes. Mennonite cookbooks are pretty cryptic for the novice. Thank goodness for mom's directions.

My favourite part was the pinching of the dough. To be honest, my mom mixed and kneaded the dough before I was fully functional. She's an extreme morning person. I'm not.

Zwieback rising; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2014

Zwieback is a big deal among Dutch German, a.k.a Russian, Mennonites. It dries nicely and is very light so one can tuck them into pockets and eat them on a long journey while fleeing for your life. Zwieback nourished my grandparents and great-grandparents on their long treks out of Russia, across the Atlantic on the ship Minnedosa to Canada in the 1920s.

Zwieback straight out of the oven; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2014

Clearly my pan wasn't big enough for the Zwieback to double without touching each other.

Zwieback on Oma's cooling rack; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2014

When my aunt died, I inherited my Oma's baking rack on which thousands of Zwieback, brown bread, and cookies likely cooled. My unMennonite allergies don't allow me to eat Zwieback, but according to my husband they were very, very, very good. I set aside the seven best looking Zwieback and have been drawing them as I continue my Lenten Intuitive mark-making practice. One day I'll share  the images. I'd like to bake Zwieback with my mom again, next time with larger baking pans: I have a cloche to fill.