EARTH FRIENDLY ART MAKING

Reinventing an art career after 30 years of promoting myself with the tag line “encaustic artist and educator.”

The materials a visual artist uses are not just tools; they are pathways to expression, creativity, and connection with the world around them. For almost 30 years, my primary medium has been the beeswax based paint, encaustic. The material's versatility, luminosity, painterly and sculptural qualities gobsmacked me from the first moment I encountered it in 1995.

Yet, after my solo exhibition, “The Clothes We Wear,” at the top of my game, both as an artist and educator, I gave myself a year sabbatical from any further show or teaching commitments. I wanted time to consider how exploring other mediums might enhance my art practice. In 2023, I gave myself another year. But I did not stop making. Ever. I enrolled in new-to-me technique workshops with an intention of focusing primarily on sustainable materials.

Much of the time passed in simple ways of being: savoring the slowness of hand stitching, long walks, looking closely. A focus on place, honoring the respect and value I hold for the microcosms of nature. And noticing an intense interest and reverence for trees, specifically since returning to live in my native Pacific Northwest.

An almost daily wander through the forests of Dorris Ranch, along the Willamette River near my home in Springfield, Oregon.

And through all the explorations and frustrations of once again becoming an “emerging” artist, I've been in a state of quiet puzzlement as to what this interest is leading to conceptually. What am I wanting to say with the new art techniques and materials I'm pursuing?

One particular interest that has emerged during this period of exploration is that of making my own handmade paint using natural earth pigments, applied to reclaimed linen fabric that can be hung, stretched, folded, and stitched. Unlike synthetic pigments that have ecological impacts, natural earth pigments are derived sustainably from rocks and soil. I can even source the pigments locally, all by myself.

Locally sourced brown and red clays. Step one for handmade paint from natural earth pigments.

I also really like the fact that working with earth pigments places my work within a profound historical and cultural context. Natural earth pigments are minerals finely ground into powder form, sourced directly from the earth. By using these pigments, I'm connecting with traditions that span cultures and epochs, tapping into an artistic heritage of materials that have been used for millennia by civilizations across the globe, from the ochres of ancient Australian Aboriginal art to the vibrant azurite blues of Egyptian tomb paintings.

“Beyond the Fray,” Natural Earth Pigments on Linen, 30 x 24. One of my new paintings delivered to the Attic Gallery that will be featured at their grand re-opening, September 2024.

People know me as a traveler. Often, my partner and fellow artist, Nard Claar, and I are told “we live vicariously through your travel blogs and posts.” But as I wander amidst the mire of living in a body that has successfully aged to 72, I realize that this newish interest in focusing on locality is reflective of a leaning in to being less mobile, more like the rootedness of plants and trees.

What I've come to so far is the sense that back here in Oregon, near family, dealing emotionally with the passing of my mother and the subsequent familial obligations of sorting through her 90 year accumulation of earthly belongings, perhaps the discussion I'm having with my work involves a search for the right manner and means to effectively explore my personal cultural heritage, as it relates to place, and yes, to my own mortality.

Sign on my Studio Wall!

In the meantime, as the sign hanging in my studio reminds me, I'm just having fun creating things I want to exist. And for now, that's enough.

CLOTHING CLOTH CLOUGH January 27 2024

Mina Angelene Sheary and Forrest William (Bill) Clough, June 13, 1950.

Fifty years ago, after moving from Oregon to Alaska, at my request, my mother sent me her wedding dress with the admonition that it was worthless because of the stains. I had a fantasy of wearing her dress when I got married (the first time, 1977). Turns out her waistline at age 17 was way smaller than mine at 25. The dress stayed in a trunk for 30 years until I moved again, from Alaska to Colorado.

Brenda Roper and the wedding dress reimagined.

I gifted the dress to my Santa Fe based artist friend, Brenda Roper, whose artwork often utilizes vintage clothing to inform her investigations of “social relationships, identity, family secrets, and feminism.” I wrote a blog about it in 2012 titled “Giving Away the Bride, Giving Away the Dress….Or….how artists will make art out of most anything!”

Nard and I loading the dress to relocate from Santa Fe to Colorado Springs.

Roper embellished the dress with bells and buttons and reshaped it sculpturally on a vintage metal dress form. She exhibited it but always with a “NFS” tag even though I insisted it was perfectly fine to pass it on. Eight years later, in March of 2020, Roper needed to downsize, and so the dress in its new form came back to me to live in my Colorado Springs studio.

Colorado Springs based visual artist, Wendy Mike, adopts the wedding dress.

And then in 2023, it was my turn to downsize when Nard and I made the surprise decision to move to Oregon. And yet another caretaker/guardian took custody, Colorado Springs artist and friend, Wendy Mike.

One month ago, the woman who first owned that dress, my mother, Mina Angeline Clough, died at age 90, of complications from dementia.

The passing of a parent gives pause and reflection on one's own progress through life, especially when there is a house full of 90 years of accumulation to deal with.

In her cedar hope chest, a cultural relic in and of itself, I discovered her bridal veil. A piece of the wedding dress ensemble that I hadn't asked for or received in 1977. I brought it home and it now lives on the cardboard cutout of “me” I gave to mom a few years ago hoping seeing my image daily would help her remember she had a daughter named Sheary. I dressed it up with my father's bowling team shirt that I also found in the hope chest.

The significance of all this wedding dress's travels and why I feel compelled to write about the journey this dress has taken is still unclear to me. Part and parcel of the process of considering one's own mortality after a parent's passing, I'm sure. Intertwined with measures of time, movement, and spaces within, and without.

WEARING YOUR CONVICTIONS

My first “visible mended” jeans.

These jeans were purchased for $5 at our local charity shop, ARC, here in Colorado Springs.

Maria giving her butter soft but worn to the point of fragility jeans some love before handing them over to me for repair.

Last year I was inspired by a podcast about the artist Celia Pym who discussed her practice of offering to mend others' beloved articles of clothing, at no charge, just because. Here is the link, if you'd like to listen for yourself.

Shortly afterward, Nard and I were in Camas, Washington, delivering some new art to Attic Gallery. I was wearing my newly stitched visible mended jeans (pictured above) that I had made as an example for my upcoming Green Box Arts Festival workshop, “Visible Mending.”

When gallerist Maria Gonsor exclaimed that I could easily sell the jeans in a local boutique, and that she had some beloved jeans that had been at her seamstress' shop across the street for over six months because the woman was nervous that they would fall apart if she added anymore machine stitching to them, I saw my opportunity to try my hand at Celia's form of generosity.

With the agreement that I would have no time limit on the repair process, as well as complete artistic freedom, Maria collected the jeans and handed them over with trust and faith. Those jeans have since traveled with me from Washington state to Alaska, through Canada, down through North and South Dakota back to Colorado, where they are nearing completion, hopefully in time to mail back to Maria before Christmas.

Maria’s jeans, mending in progress.

But the true inspiration for why I'm telling you about these jeans came from the book “How to be a Craftivist; The art of gentle protest” by Sarah Corbett, which I began reading in 2020 while I was working toward defining the concepts for my art-activist installation “The Clothes We Wear,” calling out the ills of Fast Fashion in a manner I hoped would be informative rather than aggressive. You can re-visit the exhibition here.

In my Oct 19, 2021 blog, “Mending a Sock” I spoke about the shame my generation and earlier ones felt about being seen in public wearing clothes that were second-hand or mended. The increasing acceptance, even pride, current generations exhibit with their endeavors to shop resale and to mend contribute to decreasing landfills, air pollution, water pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Wearing visibly mended clothing with pride promotes normalcy surrounding the idea of re-using and re-imagining one's wardrobe. The clothing invites discussion that can lead to a gentle inspiration to others who may not have considered or been aware of the impact that the fashion industry has on the environment and on third world vulnerable laborers.

More and more, mending our existing clothes and/or those of friends is a trend that is making a positive impact on the fight against the over consumption of cheaply made Fast Fashion clothing.

I’d love to hear from you if you are doing any mending or upcycling. Also, Fyi, I’ve been invited back to teach “Visible Mending” at the 2023 Green Box Arts Festival June 30 - July 15. Subscribe to my e-newsletter to be the first to know when registration opens; last year’s workshop was sold out immediately.

I've been enjoying working slowly but steadily on repairing Maria’s jeans since last March.

BICYCLE TRAVEL: Some observations and Reflections

“Touring”, Ink, Encaustic, on Sumi Paper, by Sheary Clough Suiter

I've been bike touring for over ten years now. Bike touring options are varied, from self contained in which one carries everything….clothes, food and water, tent, sleeping bag, tools and repair kits....to supported, in which one carries basically nothing but oneself on the bike and someone else drives all your stuff from point to point. My touring has mostly been the former and on every trip I experience a “strong woman” ego rush that feeds feelings of joyful independence.

Beyond that aspect, the primary joy of moving oneself from point to point by pedal power is that you see things, and things see you. I love how cows in the pasture will stop eating and look up directly at the cyclist, watching intently until they've passed. Humans will often do the same, and if you're stopped, and if they've stopped and are outside of their cars, they want to engage, and that's one of the ultimate joys of bicycle travel, the people you meet along the way. But that's another story, a book possibly.

There are two main places to bike tour: along smaller back-roads or along off-road trails designed for walkers and cyclists. Just as with trying to find a campsite without a prior reservation in a National Park these days, the noticeable increase in population, thus the increase in numbers of cars on the road in just the last ten years, has made back-road travel less safe. And just as with driving anywhere, road rage is a real thing and so I just feel less and less safe even on highways with wide shoulders. Once, in Texas, a driver actually purposefully swerved into the shoulder area, over the rumble strips, to, I don't know, scare me, intimidate me, prove his idiocy? The noise of his wheels on the rumble strip itself was such a shock, I could have crashed just from that. The moments after when I realized it was an intentional act of aggression with his ¾ ton pick up truck against my defenselessness saw me shaking all right!

But even an asshole like that didn't kill the joy of that experience of traveling from Austin, TX to St Augustine, FL all via the power of my own short legs. And definitely the good people along the way far outweighed the bad. Travel angels who went far out of their way to help us with a breakdown that couldn't be repaired with a travel kit. Another time, a man protectively tailed us with his big pick up truck, at our pace, across a busy two lane bridge that had no shoulders, but plenty of semi's.

Even dedicated and protected bike lanes can be crowded these days. Montreal at rush hour was a big surprise as cyclists zoomed past Nard and me as we came into town, toodling along with our fully loaded tour bikes. Here in Springs when there is street construction, the road crews put up cones and a sign that reads “Bike Lane Closed, Merge With Traffic.” I always wonder when I read that sign, do the cars driving in what they have always known to be THEIR car lane, notice the sign? Sure they see the cones and all, but hey, they're trying to get to work, school, late for an appointment. It's not unreasonable to say that most motorists consider bikes on the road a nuisance and most maybe think they shouldn't have the rights they really do. It is a way of thinking that our car culture has created. Whereas, when we encountered Montreal street construction that closed the dedicated bike lane route, the city had already placed cones to create a new bike lane, with detour signage, retaining a protected bike lane. Same amount of cones, way different approach to problem solving.

Of course, most of my time on a bicycle is spent riding locally….errands around the Springs, rides just for the fun and daily exercise. Most of the time I wear clothing that I reserve just for bike riding: a pair of cargo shorts to easily carry a wallet, keys, and phone, and a bright UPF 50+ long sleeved t shirt that is protective, but cool in our hot Colorado sun.

“Dressed For the Destination”, Ink, Encaustic, on Sumi Paper, by Sheary Clough Suiter

Recently however, Nard and I attended a Porch Party at the Trails and Open Spaces Coalition, about 6 miles from our home. It was a push pull as to whether we would drive our car or ride our bikes to the 4p event. There were on and off rains passing through this September afternoon and so the inclination was to drive. But we said, heck, let's just pretend we're in Anacortes, WA and go for it (a quaint town where we spent last March and rode in the rain regularly with no problem because in the Pacific Northwest, it's a matter of ride in the rain or don't ride at all).

And because it was an “event” I decided at the last minute to dress for the destination rather than for a bike ride. I wore a cute top, a skort, and my new bright yellow rain boots. As we cruised down Midland Trail with a tail wind that made it feel as if we had e-bikes, Nard looked over and said, “You look so European!” I smiled back at him and called out, “And I like it!”

Deja Vu of a trip some years ago when we had the privilege of bike touring in the Netherlands. What a revelation regarding how bicycles can supersede motor cars. The order of priority for the right away is flipped. It goes: bicycles, pedestrians, then cars. Anytime we happened to be off of the dedicated bike lanes, which were plentiful, if we came to an intersection, all cars immediately stopped to let us cross first. It was uncanny.

Netherlands is easy pedaling along a lot of flatness. The biggest “hills” were the highway overpasses. As Nard and I were pedaling up one of those, another cyclist who looked to be in her 90's buzzed past us. As we turned to look at her she grinned widely and shouted out gleefully, “Electric!”

On the pathways here in Springs, we are seeing a huge increase in e-bike cyclists. Partly a result of the pandemic creating a need in people to find ways to get outdoors, for a while you couldn't even find a bike to buy the demand was so high. Now we are seeing e-bike rentals and retail sales all over town. The difficulty for us “old timers” is that there is little to no process such as motor vehicle licensing that provides education to new riders regarding the courtesies of riding on a shared off-road path. It is a danger to all parties if a rider passes without calling out or ringing the bike bell to let the slower one know to be sure to stay to one side of the lane, or to warn a pedestrian with a dog (leashed or unleashed, despite laws that say they are to be leashed) who is prone to wander back and forth across the path. And the homemade bikes on the paths are also increasing. There are no regulations on these gas-motor-powered speedsters with their noise, noxious fumes which are not only an annoyance but a danger. So, although I champion the concept of an uptick in bicycle ridership, I admit to a mildly derisive inner dialogue that labels e bike riders as not “real” bike riders.

However, as I enter my 70's I now face the question of how to reconcile that judgmental response with the reality of seeing more and more of my cycling friends show up at rides with electric assist bicycles. At last, curiosity got the best of me and I gave one a test ride at REI the other day. And I'm not (very) embarrassed to admit that I really liked the automatic oomph the bike provided when I pedaled up a hill. I liked it a lot. And I missed it a lot all the way home where I must climb the hill above Old Colorado City each time I return home.

Hmmmmmm. I see visions of a future in which an e-assist facilitates more frequent “dressing for the destination” without concern that I'll arrive all sweaty from tackling those uphill climbs!

I’d love to receive comments about your e bike experiences or feelings on the subject.

THE BEAUTY OF LIMITATIONS

We're all familiar with the concept of diminishment inherent in tiny homes. During the month of March, Nard and I lived in a 600 square foot cottage in Anacortes, Washington. We became personally familiar with what it's like to reduce one's footprint by residing and working in the space of a single room.

Cottage living gave limitation on what artwork we could choose to pursue. The Anacortes cottage does have a deck area that expanded our possible usable space, but it's uncovered and if you are familiar with the weather patterns of the Pacific Northwest, you know that nine times out of ten, the space would be unusable unless you are a duck. Here you see the lovely Puget Sound views we enjoyed on a rain-free day.

The tiny cottage kitchen was a limitation of how many pots and pans Nard could use (read: get dirty for me to wash in the teeny tiny sink) to prepare our meals.

Turns out, when we returned to our Colorado Springs spacious home and art studio, I felt a little overwhelmed the first few days. So…...much…...stuff. I was reminded of the axiom that whatever space one has, that's how much stuff one keeps around.

Simplification is complicated….ironic, I know. Everyone's experienced the phenomena of finally getting rid of an object you've had around the house and never used for years. Shortly thereafter, it's exactly what you needed for this project or that.

The idea of seeing limitations as a positive thing isn't new to my way of thinking. In the interest of pushing my work beyond the usual, I regularly set limitations on myself when I'm creating a new painting series. Sometimes it's a limited color palette, sometimes it's a decision regarding design elements that must or must not be included in the final piece, sometimes it's something as simple as a show deadline.

Less stuff, fewer choices, fewer decisions, more time for reading a book or making art or visiting with friends or taking a hike or riding a bike. View of Anacortes, Washington, from Cap Sante Park.

So it seems to me that seeking limitations is actually all about pushing boundaries. What limitations have you initiated, or are thinking of initiating, to facilitate stretching beyond your usual?