First Thursday artist’s reception
What fun to look back on the whirlwind of last night’s First Thursday opening of Intertwined. People started arriving at 5 pm and kept coming through the door until the door was shut at 9 pm. […]
Category Archives: Musing
Paper pulp as faux basalt
Today, today I took a break from finger-looping twine to assemble a mock up of my experiments with paper pulp in my newly dubbed Guest Bedroom Gallery. The grey mottled crustiness of […]
Of form and formlessness
In its own way, this finger-looping process that I’ve committed to is mysterious. Everything about it seems organic like nature, magic like myth. But then, nature is magic to me—the […]
Taking a line for a walk
The artist Paul Klee spoke of taking a line for a walk. My impulse has long been to take a line for a twirl and do it again and again and […]
Repetition as mantra
People ask about the role of repetition in my work. Conceptually, it’s my desire to create wholes of small parts, the way nature grows itself—accretion, aggregation, building up, layering. Maybe repetition […]
To touch is to know
Someone once told me that my art was “so touchy feely.” Even when the work isn’t touched, it’s still touchy feely. Because … Touch is considered the mother of all […]
Finger-looping and making meaning
Creating Intertwined re-connected me to philosophical inquiry that I began over a decade ago, while studying for my BFA in sculpture. The title references my interest in intertwining the materiality […]
Finger-looping as phenomenology
Happily, my installation plan for Intertwined continues to evolve, a process very much in keeping with the modus operandi of the Method Gallery. To quote Gayle Clemans, Seattle-based art critic and historian: “The gallery […]
Speaking of twine
Twine is prehistoric. It dates back to the Stone Age. Relatively new archaeological findings suggest the material/technique first emerged in hunter-gatherer societies as early as 32,000 years ago. Wild flax […]
Ideas evolve to concept
There’s nothing like a grant deadline to force structure on swirling ideas. I spent the day trying to formalize my plans for the Method Gallery to submit with a grant application to the Idaho Commission on the Arts. […]
The body and baling wire
Two days ago, I became keenly aware of how my gestures involved in shaping wire armatures developed a rhythm. It’s different but similar to my process of finger-looping twine. It reminded me of writings […]
The Guest Bedroom Gallery
Today: a eureka moment! My studio has wonderful light—actually the best light our 130-year old house has to offer. But its wall space is limited. Worse, the ceiling isn’t suited to […]
Evoking body as landscape
Whatever I chose for time- and labor-intensive handwork has to make it easy for me to travel back and forth between materiality and meta-physicality. Twine seems especially suited to evoking a bodily resonance. Magdalena Abakanowicz […]
Intertwined—the title
For the record, I’ve committed to a title: Intertwined. in·ter·twine verb / past tense: intertwined; past participle: intertwined 1 twist or twine together: (a net made of cotton intertwined with other […]
Twine and me
I’ve been thinking about the two miles of unraveled twine I used to create my BFA exhibit in 2007. After graduating, I continued using the unraveled fibers for installations in the spring […]
Sage Advice: “Follow the Work”
Today is the day I settled (sort of) on a design (sort of) for my installation at the Method Gallery. But I got distracted, by trying to sort out my impulse for using […]
A continuous loop
Beyond the edge of the world, there’s a space where emptiness and substance neatly overlap, where past and future form a continuous, endless loop. And hovering about, there are signs […]
Channeled Scablands as metaphor
Palouse Falls in eastern Washington is just over an hour’s drive from where I live in north Idaho. Like Dry Falls in north central Washington, this region is part of what’s known […]
Invitation by Method Gallery
Eight months ago, I was invited by the Method Gallery in Seattle to create a site-responsive exhibit. It will open May 29 and run through July 2. The gallery is part […]
Art, poetry, the magic muse
A wonderful surprise arrived in the mail today. A thick, brown envelope stuffed with creative writing inspired by my art installation, Numinous, at Central Washington University. Terry Martin, who teaches creative writing, […]
Gerri Sayler Artist 