Author: ziagipson

BY ZIA GIPSON, April 5, 2013

You can’t avoid it. For humans, color is everywhere and it’s a blessing! If you’re a dog reading this column, well, I just learned via the Internet that your color perception is more limited than mine. That pink collar your human companions just bought you is really their indulgence. But if you’re an artistically inclined human, color is a fundamental, compositional element even if you consciously avoid jewel tones for the more subtle worlds between black and white.

Today’s column looks at two books about color from historical and anthropological perspectives. Regina Le Blaszczyk’s “The Color Revolution” is about the history of color. This handsomely-designed book includes the story of William Henry Perkin’s 1856 invention of aniline dyes — organic compounds extracted from coal tar. Perkins had been trying to synthesize quinine, an anti-malarial drug needed in Britain’s topical colonies and stumbled on a previously unimaginable mauve/magenta instead.

Blaszcyk spends the bulk of her nearly 300 pages on the history of the use of color for the post-industrial world of consumer product manufacturing. The book is very well researched and comprehensive; scholarly even, but not dull.

If you ever wondered how the ‘in’ colors are chosen and promulgated so that clothing manufacturers the world over come to produce products with the same color palette, then this book will open your eyes. Those who have worked in design fields might find the history of the Pantone Matching System, created in 1963, interesting. (For more interesting details on Pantone, you may wish to consult the New York Times Magazine’s Feb. 23 story, “Who Made the Pantone Chip?”  I learned that the red in the American flag is always Pantone 193 and computer giant, Apple, uses Pantone 453 for its beige.)

“The Color Revolution” is a great browse covering the use of color in product design and costume, fashion and ordinary clothing. The invention and use of camouflage is covered in detail, as is how we came to have colored automobiles and brightly-hued kitchen appliances.  Tired of our gray skies? Pick up this terrific read.

The other color book I’ve had in hand recently is “Colors: What They Mean and How to Make Them” by archeologist and ethnologist Anne Varichon, translated from the French by Toluca Ballas. This book takes on the world of color one hue at a time. It covers color anthropologically beginning with not-really-so-plain white. We learn that white, rather than black, is a mourning color in some cultures because it’s associated with rites of passage. In the white section of the book, Varichon provides a recipe for whitewash and for eggshell paint.

Varichon addresses the meaning of colors in different religious contexts and traditional cultures. She provides color recipes from materials as diverse as cochineal insects (for red) to henna from the plant Lawsonia inermis, a native of India (for reddish brown). A lengthy bibliography is available for those who wish to go back to original sources, though many are in French. This cultural encyclopedia of color is printed on high-quality paper, making it a pleasure to hold in your hands.

My “Catch of the Day” is “The Accidental Masterpiece, On the Art of Life and Vice Versa” by Michael Kimmelman.

Next time, I’ll cover books of fiction. In the meantime, don’t forget to put libraries and librarians in your bedtime prayers. I love my library!

Coming up:

• Freeland Library Book Sale: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 6.
• Coupeville Library Book Sale: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 6.
• Murder In The Stacks: Meet Agatha Award finalist Mary Daheim, author of two mystery series, “Emma Lord” and “Bed & Breakfast,” at 1 p.m. Monday, April 8  at Coupeville Library.

Zia Gipson is a mixed-media artist who is working on a series of collages that incorporate printmaking, stamping, drawing, painting, and other forms of mark-making. She’s active in the artists’ groups, Whidbey Island Surface Design and Northwest Designer Craftsmen.

ZIA GIPSON, Feb. 22, 2013

Forty-four years ago I spent the summer in Japan. I vividly remember shopping in tiny stationery stores along crowded Yokohama streets, where the stores wrapped my purchases of delicate paper and envelopes in colored, patterned paper—different in every shop—and tied them with colored string to take home. At each stop I placed my packages into a furoshiki, or wrapping cloth, and tied the top into handles to make a portable bundle. Returning home at the end of the day, I untied the furoshiki to find a pile of elegantly attired packages, each one an artwork in itself. I noticed that each store had its own unique wrapping paper, much the way our shopping bags today carry a company logo. 

Later that summer, my family spent a few nights in a Japanese inn, or ryokan. Upon arrival, we changed into yakata, the cool summer cotton kimonos provided by the inn. As we walked through town, it seemed that everyone wore a different, lightweight kimono patterned in indigo blue and white. Had we lost our way, a resident would have been able to tell us where we were staying by the design we wore! This summer feast of design-in-use was the beginning of my lifelong fascination with color and pattern, a minor obsession that has found expression in much of my artistic work.
Today’s blog covers two books about the furoshiki wrapping cloths from Japan that I learned to appreciate so long ago. Still in use, furoshiki are a beautiful and practical alternative to the environmentally disastrous plastic bag. While Americans in some parts of the U.S. have gone back to reusable bags, the Japanese seem to be going back to an older tradition—if indeed they ever left it.
A typical furoshiki is around 17 inches square. The two I have, each 20-inch squares, are printed with depictions of kimono-wearing women. My two cloths have images of old Japan, but many furoshiki I’ve seen on the Web recently are elaborately patterned with images of the natural world, images from domestic life, or abstract patterns.
Sno-Isle Libraries has two very different books on the subject. The first, “Furoshiki Fabric Wraps” by Pixeladies (Deb Cashatt and Kris Sazaki, 2012) tells us that these wrapping cloths were first used to wrap the clothes of nobility. Later, when public baths became popular, the fabric squares were used to carry clothing to and from the baths. “Furoshiki Fabric Wraps” contains how-to-wrap diagrams much like those in origami (paper-folding) manuals. The illustrations take us through basic knots and twists and the various shapes that can be folded or tied for different purposes. For example, there is the hand-carry wrap (a two-handled shape), the watermelon wrap (for long, oval shapes), and several varieties tied especially for carrying books. The authors provide instruction for some surface design techniques for those who wish to make custom wrapping cloths. I especially liked the inclusion of five pages of pull-out how-to-fold cards.
An entirely different type of book on the same topic, Furoshiki “The Art of Japanese Wrapping Fabric” by Kanako Hamasaki (2011) was produced in Japan. Its white-clad cover with minimalist black lettering sets the tone for 244 pages of photographs of the traditional carrying cloths. The photography by Hiroshi Yoda and design by Kazuya Takaoka make the book a visual feast. Limited Japanese and English text appears opposite each image of the cloths, reading something like a koan or haiku. For example, the text for the cloth titled “Fukusa” on page 218 reads:

A crane and a tortoise at the lakeshore.
At the beginning of each seasonal ceremony
the emperor views the sun and the moon.
Court music is played
and danced  to for entertainment.
A cup of sake celebrates longevity.

Books like this one always prompt me to wonder whatever possessed the acquisitions staff to purchase such a lovely book. It’s certainly not a predictable addition, making it all the more precious when the reader stumbles across it. That’s the magic of libraries: They bring you gifts you didn’t even know existed and allow you to fall in love with something beautiful and rare.

My “Catches of the Day” are “100 Diagrams that Changed the World: From the Earliest Cave Paintings to the Innovation of the iPod” by Scott Christianson and “My Cool Caravan: An Inspirational Guide to Retro-Style Caravans” by Jane Field-Lewis.

Next time I’ll take a look at two books about color, but in an  historical and anthropological context. 

Coming up:
Clinton Library Book Sale from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, March 2 at Clinton Community Hall.

In the meantime, don’t forget to put libraries and librarians in your bedtime prayers. I love my library!

Zia Gipson is a mixed-media artist who is working on a series of collages that incorporate printmaking, stamping, drawing, painting, and other forms of mark-making. She’s active in the artists’ groups, Whidbey Island Surface Design and Northwest Designer Craftsmen.

ZIA GIPSON, Jan. 25, 2013

“Using Your Photos Creatively”

In this day of Iphoneology and Instagram many of us end up with thousands of images. Instead of relegating them to permanent storage, books on image and photo transfer give us ways to use images for personal expression or in making one-of-a-kind gifts. Today’s Free-Range Reader looks at library resources that help the image-overloaded move images from one surface (usually paper or a transparency) to another. If you can’t get that piece of cloth, thick paper, or piece of wood into your printer, photo transfers might be just the thing.

Start with some exotic paper and add one or more layers of photographic imagery. Start with a piece of wood you’ve sanded smooth and add photos of trees. Start with a beautiful handmade book and transfer photos of your kids, or use an image from the Internet’s Wikimedia Commons, with it’s a database of 15,266, 845 freely usable media files. (Be sure to read the rules for using these mostly free pictures.) Image transfer makes for a fun art-as-science-with-technology process to pass a rainy day.

Sno-Isle Libraries has a number of good references (search “photo transfer” or “image transfer”).  Two books I’ve used that are in the library system are “Image Transfer Workshop-Mixed Media Techniques for Successful Transfers” by Darlene Olivia McElroy and Sandra Duran Wilson 2009 and “Image Transfer-Creating Art with Your Photography” by Ellen Horovitz  2011.

Horovitz’ book has one significant advantage over the earlier volume: her informational grid, “Transfer Summary for Papers and Solvents,” which organizes the complex options for method name, paper type, printer type, and process into an easy-to-use chart that helps you compare your options and avoid flipping back and forth in the book.

I’ve had the most success getting recognizable deep black images by printing my pictures onto transparencies and transferring them to moistened paper using hand sanitizer. The active ingredient in the sanitizer is alcohol, and the alcohol gel releases a film coating from the plastic transfer sheet. Pressure with a burnishing tool moves the gooey film image to the receiving surface of the paper. (Of course, this method works only if you can get your printer to load and print a transparency. I suggest making an offering to Ganeesh the Hindu god, who removes impediments. Light some incense. Throw some salt over your left shoulder. Or throw the incense and torch the salt. Whatever works.) If all else fails, check the Internet for tips on how to print on transparencies without endangering your printer.

Horovitz is somewhat cavalier in her advice about using the concentrated house-cleaning product Citrasolv as a release agent when using transparencies. While she cautions the reader to use acetone in a well-ventilated area, her observation that super-concentrated CitraSolve has “a lovely orange scent” implies that it is exempt from safety precautions. Yikes! Just because it doesn’t smell bad doesn’t mean it should be inhaled. Be good to your body. Use good ventilation, a respirator, and eye protection, especially if you plan on spraying liquids.

Sno-Isle has several other photo and transfer books.  “Mixed Emulsions: Altered Art Techniques for Photographic Imagery” by actress Angela Cartwright (Brigitta in the film “The Sound of Music”) and Karen Michel’s “The Complete Guide to Altered Imagery: Mixed Media Techniques for Collage, Altered Books, Artists Journals, and More” are two more resources.

I urge you to choose a book and experiment until you end up with something you find interesting. Start small and don’t worry about what you’re going to do with the results.

Time’s a’wastin’!  Let’s get to the studio, basement, dining room table, or garage and get all those pictures out of the phone and into the light of day!

Catches of the Day at Sno-Isle Libraries: “Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain” by Maryanne Wolf; “Eyewitness Handbooks: Butterflies and Moths” by David Carter; and “Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art” by Karen Kramer Russell.

Next Up: A trip to Japan via furoshiki, the art of wrapping with fabric.

In the meantime, don’t forget to put libraries and librarians in your bedtime prayers. I love my library!

Coming up:

Freeland Library Book Sale: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 2 at the library.
Clinton Library Book Sale: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 16, at Clinton Progressive Hall.

Zia Gipson is a mixed-media artist working on a series of 108 collages that incorporate printmaking, stamping, drawing, painting, and other forms of mark-making. She’s active in the artists’ groups Whidbey Island Surface Design and Northwest Designer Craftsmen.