Spring Newsletter
I’ve been thinking a lot about PATTERN as I work in my studio lately. There are many definitions out there, but let’s make it easy and define pattern as repeating shapes. I'm hard-pressed to find any recent work of mine that doesn’t have an element of pattern in it. I took a little trip into my archives to find examples...
At times I study wallpaper and fabric design for inspiration, and I still sometimes dream about the wallpaper in my grandmother’s house, ivy covering the walls and ceiling of a bedroom that I would nap in — and present in many other rooms in the house! Wallpaper is no longer so popular, but this piece is a bit like wallpaper in a frame:
I don’t start these with a design in mind, rather I start very abstractly, paint flying, all intuition. But my brain finds the patterns in the chaos, and pieces like this are a result (this one has more shapes within the shapes!):
Some are quite regular, with recurring geometry — circles and rectangles are a favorite of mine:
These semicircles also are a recurring motif for me, and in this one, I’ve also added an element of brocade. (Hello, Grammy!)
I’ve read that patterns offer visual clues to an underlying order and that they can be used to quickly analyze a situation and understand how it works. I believe there’s some truth to that, and I think finding order in chaos has been comforting to me in these crazy times.
Please feel free to reach out to me at sally@sallyhootnick.com if you agree or disagree or just want to say hello… Happy Spring!