Influences

It’s impossible to process

I hesitate to post these thoughts. Watching the horror on the news is too big, too evil, too dark. I feel the weight of Ukraine. I feel the weight of our dysfunctional political system and now…Israel and Palestine.

It’s dark. Overwhelming. I can fall into despair with each news segment.

While working on this piece for the past three weeks I started with the idea of those invisible things that happen in biological systems. Blood cells, bacteria, infection, growth, coded genomes, and bodily structures. And also the way soil has populations of organic matter full of life and motion. I wanted the detail and texture to represent the complicated environments within and without.

But then the news got more dire. A congress that can’t get their act together. People banning books. War in Ukraine continuing and winter coming. And then Israel and Palestine.

The piece got darker. and darker.

Incursion, 30” x 46”, canvas, ink, batting. Paula Kovarik

Breathe, breathe.

the uncanny

A while back I was driving down a long highway listening to a podcast about the iconography of halos in history and art. The halo, a perfect circle, often glowing, is situated above a person’s head. It’s a signifier of holiness, otherness and mystery. But then, as my mind wandered over the ideas of perfect circles and mystery, a car drove by towing another car that had the words broken halos printed on the back.

That’s what I mean by the uncanny. There are messages buzzing through this universe that, if I pay attention, if I concentrate on the now, if I notice what is odd or exotic, I may get a glimpse into the magic of being in this universe.

Gestation, Paula Kovarik, 2023

Have you seen those photographs of the universe lately?

I’ve been thinking about species and the vast number of them that are disappearing. I’ve been thinking about politicians and how they are lured into power vortexes where progress and empathy for the other is thwarted. I’ve been thinking about our species and how we seem to be pre-disposed to war. I’ve been thinking that life is short—too short to answer any of my questions with reliability.

I’ve been thinking. What if we are just another Petri dish in the grand experiment of the universe? Which vectors will finally bring us to nothingness? What will be left? Will new species emerge?

Sniffer skin, Paula Kovarik

Sometimes I just have to shut it all down. The questions are too big. They bring anxiety, anger and worry. Stitching helps. If I consciously tap into the motion and method of stitch I come closest to BEING HERE NOW. I think that all artists, writers and musicians seek that motion. Maybe the politicians, judges, generals and bosses would benefit from a little stitching. A little ripping out. They could get their own perfect circle hovering above their heads.

A new species

A litter of sniffers, Paula Kovarik

I created a new species this week. Using the stitched canvas shown above, these little guys emerged from the ooze. I’m naming them Sniffers. I have a litter of eight. The little slideshow below introduces each one of them.

Sniffers, a slideshow of fiber art by Paula Kovarik

If I place them just so, they create a perfect circle. Sniffing the air for answers. Big questions or small, my focus is on noticing. Change. Mystery. Differences. Words. Species. Developments.

The Uncanny.

exuberant distractions

How can I resist these colors? Why am I sitting in front of computer instead of grazing idly through the parkscapes gathering up the color? Fall beckons. Make haste to the outdoors.

Hardy Ageratum and Henry's Garnet Sweetspire.

Hardy Ageratum and Henry's Garnet Sweetspire.

I will continue the hand stitching on this piece (The grass was greener) outside, in the lingering spectacle.

The grass was greener, detail, Paula Kovarik, 2015

A potential stitch pattern? Hyacinth Bean vine takes over the back deck.

today's catch

So I just want to know. Do women really change their tampons at the beach or is it that these tampon applicator mini-missiles float to the top of the waste stream and are carried as if on a carpet of magic to the beaches of our lives? 

I went off a beaten path today and wandered down an area of the beach best remembered as the outer limits. You know...exploring, beachcombing in hopes that the outer limits might show me a different side of the edge between land and lake. OK, there were some signs saying I shouldn’t be there. Some fences with barbed wire, the usual territorial hoopla. never mind...

This guy brightened my mood. 

This guy brightened my mood. 

Wandering today brought me to the conclusion that either women are just plain inconsiderate or they need to lobby the tampon industry to make the applicator torpedoes biodegradable. Because after about a mile of wandering the strand of sand I counted at least 10 of them. There was some evidence of a celebration -- spent balloons on ribbons, cigarette butts and empty spirits bottles. But nothing that indicated that the celebration debris was anything but ordinary accumulation. 

Was the moon especially strong this week? Was there a convocation of menstrual maidens in the area? Or did Playtex, Kotex, and Tampax decide they want to be sure that their product has long life and happiness on the beach of their dreams (wait....what is it with the ex in these names anyway?). 

Ladies, please, if it’s you, dispose of these mini missiles appropriately. Or, maybe, just maybe, consider using something that will not live on into the next century. Natural is as natural does so to speak. And shame on the tampon industry, creating a product that does not disappear. Use it one time and discard right? And make sure it is plastic so it floats. Yeah...that's it!

On a more pleasant note.

I found these today. New folks to join my collection of rocks with faces. Man I love these guys! I want to do an installation of them in the future. They just speak to me. 

Check out that guy in the upper left corner. Sculpture! right?

And here is the piece I have been working on with their cousins. I took it to the beach for a little dunk in the lake and some sun today. 

Rock Collection, Paula Kovarik, 2015

Sand in my shoes

As a child my family would travel to lower Lake Michigan for summer holidays. I still remember that slightly moldering smell of my great aunt’s cabins, moss hanging off the roof and long stairways down to some of the most brilliant beaches of my life. Part of the journey to those cabins was watching with fascination and horror as we passed the steel mills and industrial smokestacks in and around Gary, Indiana. There was a smell of sulfur in the air and a certain dread of having to stop there while traveling through. The landscape was muscular, apocalyptic and wholly man-made.

Lake Michigan beaches are crowded with families this weekend.

The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore hugs this coast and nestles in with the muscle-bound industry here at the base of the lake.

Botanists, politicians, scientists and neighbors all fought for the unique ecosystems represented here. Bogs and wetlands, black oak forests carpeted with ferns, rivers, ponds and of course, the dunes. Mountains of dunes. Dunes that swallow trees, dunes that shelter wildlife, dunes that build and move relentlessly with the action of the wind. Dunes that actually created beaches for the people in Chicago.

My walk today was in a black oak forest at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

I will come to know this area better by spending these two weeks in residency. The National Lakeshore is a string of pearls, preserved and collected piece by piece into an assemblage of unique ecosystems. Though I am still stiff with judgment of how the land has been treated in the past, I see some reluctance on the part of the park rangers to condemn the industry in their midst. I am hopeful that the scientists are paying attention and that the politicians are working hard to save even more of the natural landscape.

Can industry honor the earth and provide jobs at the same time? How does nature adapt to intrusion? The employees of this national lakeshore are here to witness and maintain the sweet origins of the landscape. They educate the public, observe the changing landscapes, and continue the work of the people before them who recognized the richness and diversity of this unique ecosystem.