scraps and colonies

I work on many projects at the same time. If not, I get bored. I like how pieces morph and talk to each other as they progress. I can sometimes see similarities other times big differences. Techniques can change while concepts are basically the same. I am influenced by my readings and by the news, and by the walks I take to catch a breath. Lately I use my art to distract myself from the feeling of dread when I watch the news.

Two works in progress, Nonsense on the left and Letting Go on the right.

Play

Sometimes I just like to have fun. The piece on the left in the picture above is done on a piece of whole cloth I designed and had printed at Spoonflower. The cartoonish figures gave me a playground for stitching.

I like to layer my stitching to create a sense of movement or depth.

I’m always looking for surprises. Check out this dude peaking out from behind the black squares.

Nonsense, 49.5” x 35”, Paula Kovarik

Parts are smaller than the whole

Over the course of ten years I have accumulated baskets of scrapped quilted pieces. They are not only offcuts but also pieces that I cut up after being disappointed with the results of a composition. About seven years ago I made some garlands of the scraps that reminded me of the beaded curtains that were so popular back in the day. Those curtains always seemed to signal a mystery behind them. They obscured an opening while also creating a gateway that was easy to traverse. They were a little mysterious but also enchanting and magical. So, as I accumulated more and more garlands this scraps piece has evolved to be more than its parts. These scraps represent my process, my trajectory and my history as an artist. They also stand witness to the mistakes I defined, the trial and error that I experienced, and the idea that I just have to let go. It’s a work in progress and morphs every day.

I’m starting to curate the scraps. There are days when I look around at other pieces I have created and wonder if they too should be cut up and strung together.

Colonies

We talk about colonies in space, colonies on land and colonies of bacteria. Each type of colony has an intrinsic architecture that fastens the parts to the whole. That architecture is something we have in common with other species.

Once I had the opportunity to follow the trails of leaf cutter ants from a tree that they were dismantling scrap by scrap to their colony in a dirt bank down the road. I was mesmerized. Not only were they a little army of workers but also they had guards, emergency crews, dancers, choppers, lifters, slackers, and buried somewhere deep within, a queen. Their trails, structures and actions are mirrored in our own cities, countries and families.

In the NPR series Searching for Meaning: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science Alan Lightman says that “Meaning must be found in the moment even as we yearn for immortality.” I was totally in the moment, filled with awe, while studying that leaf cutter colony. The focus from macro to micro made me a conscious witness to a separate reality.

Colonies, a work-in-progress, Paula Kovarik

“Colonies” could represent microscopic detail but also resembles aerial shots of land and developments. I am somewhere between those two ideas for now.

The leaves were dancing

The other day I was driving home after doing some errands. I saw autumn leaves dancing in the street from the turbulence created by the cars driving by. They twirled, jumped and rained down from the sky.

For many years I have been collecting the final scraps of each project. I stitch them together to create garlands of scraps. They remind me of those beaded curtains we used to have in the 70s.

That day they reminded me of the leaves dancing in the street.

Each scrap reminds me of former projects.

That night I watched the news about the wars in Ukraine and Israel. The photos showed remnants of buildings, explosions from bombs, scraps of life. It’s so hard to process that horror. So many people affected. So many lives lost. When I got back to the studio the scraps of stitched fabrics became those scraps of life to me.

I made more.

And more.

The announcers on the tv were talking about collateral damage. How does that make any sense at all? When does it end?

I'm interested in how the earth pushes back

Every time it rains our driveway reveals cracks and crevices. They change over time as the sun dries them so sometimes the cracks are fat and overflowing and other times they are delicate and disappearing.

I have a huge photo library of these cracks. Sidewalk cracks, driveway cracks, parking lot cracks, with subsets of potholes and crevices. They have always intrigued me. They are signs that the things we lay down over the earth are only temporary. Just like us. They erode, corrode, wrinkle and are disrupted by natural forces. A little bit of rain can find the hairline entry, then grow to something larger.

I see these same lines elsewhere in nature.

Recently I started drawing these cracks and noticed that many of them end up with emerging characters. And now I am stitching them. I am interested in what the earth has to say about us. The storms, the waves, the droughts, the cracks all remind me that we are temporary. Just like these driveway cracks, just like that dead tree branch.

This summer I will have the opportunity to listen more closely to what the earth has to say. I have been accepted into the residency program at the Hambidge Center in Georgia. It’s a 600-acre sanctuary for artists, writers and other creative explorers to focus intently on their work. I will be focusing on what the earth has to say. Maybe there are even more cracks to explore.

grid interrupted

Grids are elemental. They anchor, organize and subdivide space. They add order to chaos. They bring structure to cities. They show up everywhere: cages, tiling, supermarket shelves, architectural structures. So when I started this project I aimed to break the grid. I had two projects that were not successful up on my design board that I could use as raw material. Those two, added to the multitude of other scraps I have from unfinished pieces, provided a varied and textural group to work with.

I started by cutting the quilts up into 1, 2 and 4 inch squares. These were the tiles that would fit together conveniently when I butted them up against each other. I use a stitch that looks like a ladder to stitch the tiles together–raw edge to raw edge.

Each tile had its own story left over from previous incarnations. At first blush I liked the combination of the brilliant colored tiles against the neutral black and white canvas tiles. And though there is an implied grid here, it is not regular or confining. The piece could grow in every direction.

I could also use these base tiles to add even more texture and information with layered stitching. I admit I am a bit compulsive. I love traveling across a piece to find ways of joining disparate elements with stitch.

The end result satisfies my goal of interrupting a grid. There’s more to it than that though, the piece satisfies my interest in the mysteries of life—the crazy, cacophonous reality in which we live.

Grid interrupted, 57” x42”, Paula Kovarik