I like the way my face looks. Having been in front of a camera since I was an hour old, and a photographer’s model when I was in college for the local newspaper fashion section, I’m not adverse to being looked at. I actually like the way that my face is aging, having had been smart enough to stop trying to get a suntan when I was 35. However, when it comes to my art quilts or any other form of fiber art that I’ve done, this single tapestry (21″ W x 28.25″ T or 53.5cm W x 72 cm T) shown on the left, is the only portrait that I’ve ever done in any medium.
It’s interesting that people often call my art quilts “tapestries“. I guess that term is just more familiar to the general public than “art quilts”, but tapestries are a very specific type of fiber art that has a warp and weft. The design is made by weaving the horizontal weft threads back and forth across the vertical warp threads. Often, there is a paper “cartoon” or design underneath the working frame to show you where the smaller details are to end up, as there was in the case of this piece. Unlike a usual woven piece of cloth, the weft threads may only go back and forth in a small area of one color or design, instead of traveling the entire width of the fabric from left to right. There are ways to interlock the edges, say between the gold areas shown in my cheeks to the burgundy and darker brown areas of my temples. Creating tapestries can be an exciting means of expressing pictorial statements. but this one piece done in grad school was my only attempt in the medium, and my only portraiture after some done with crayons in elementary school.
While I do
n’t do art work with faces on them, I do however, like to collect pieces with faces. This pottery bowl from northern Brazil, has many of the characteristics of African pottery, since it from an area where slaves escaped Brazilian plantations and moved inland to establish their own villages with the cultural traditions they had brought from Africa. The best known art form from that area is the martial arts/ dance known as Capoeira, but these double headed pottery pieces are another way that the people pay tribute to their African heritage. Incised lines were cut into the wet clay to accentuate the face forms near the top of the rim. The use of double faces on art work has been used in many cultures, perhaps most notably in the Janus tradition in ancient Rome.
The central part of North Carolina,USA, not far from where I grew up outside of Charlotte, has a tradition of making face jugs. Stories vary as to why rather scary faces were put on to the jugs. One of the more interesting traditions is that moonshine or illegal liquor was stored in them, and the demonic faces were meant to keep children from drinking the contents, While this example is more of an open bowl, it is made in the same style, and came into my collection some time in college because I thought it was cool looking.
So, if I like faces, why haven’t I used more of them in my art work? One theory I have is that I don’t think I particularly draw well. While I drew a lot of paper doll dresses and made clothing for my Barbie doll, I never was comfortable with the faces I sketched in art class. I was striving for a realistic portrait and always had trouble with the eyes. Perhaps at some future date, I’ll challenge myself to push past the need for perfection and just have fun playing with faces.
How are you with using faces in your own art work? Are you stuck in the need for perfection like me, or have you pushed past that issue and just allow yourself to have fun?
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