I have recently been in the contemplation of Mentors... This often happens when I am pitching myself into the clutches of a new idea, technique or other passion. Always, without fail, the Mentors pop out of hidden doorways - Always, without being sought by me. They careen headlong into my bubbling enthusiasm for the new thing and burst it open, creating even more obsession than the original impulse... Usually, they are unaware of this, or me...In my quest to cover myself and everything around me in thread, I have found another Mentor and I actually Met her in person! Last weekend, my friend Carol and I went to the Akron Art Museum to see Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson speak on her work.
Besides being a strikingly beautiful person, (sketch above does her no justice, but in my favor, she was a bit squirmy, looking here and there! Not your perfect stony model... Grin) she is a wonderful storyteller and artist. She said "I don't know what it means to be an artist, I just know how to be." She is all about the stories of community, of a shared history, and tho she didn't exactly mention this, she is ALL about color and texture.
Texture scratches at you from her Raganons. What is a Raganon? Its a story, it rolls towards the future, its FOR the future. RagGonNon because it "rags on and on" She says:
"Raganons come in many forms, cloth, painting, sculpture they are complex works that I work on for a long period of time. I don't always know where they are going. They take on a life of their own the way people respond to them means that they are always changing and never complete."
This is a Raganon. Buttons ooze off the edges and get caught in the corners or coagulate in bunches on heads, under feet and march around neckties. Buttons are big in Aminah's world.
But... its the color and the stitches that got me to raise my hand and ask about embroidery (remember at the beginning, this need I have to cover everything in thread?) She said it is the stitches that bring the music to the work, WOW! I thought. She talked about the musicality of stitching. I love that! They are the Rhythm of the work. Some stitches are small and some long, they hold it together. She made me want to stitch by hand, she made me want to play!
and... We laughed!
And Laughed!
