rebecca coleman visual studies notebook

This semester I was primarily interested in drawing moths. Some of the moths that I drew were done in charcoal to look as if they were partially covered by smoke or obscured by darkness. One moth was drawn to look as if it had flown too close to a flame, and one was drawn on its back to look as if it was being proffered up like an (unwilling) gift. Virginia Woolf writes in her essay “Death of the Moth” that moths who fly during the day “…are hybrid creatures, neither gay like butterflies nor sombre like their own species.” Moths are fragile and easy to overlook, and maybe even pitiable, but to some extent that depends on scale. An art store on Shattuck had a handmade, mottled paper that I discovered that I liked, and also some crumbly pastels that were on sale because the brand had changed something about the formula for how they were made. Moths were a departure from previous semesters of drawing when my interest had mainly been the mountains. I had been away from California ...

I found a moth in the kitchen at my house the other day. I took several pictures of it with my phone against the stainless steel countertop. I thought these images looked sort of painterly but did not have time to try to paint it because of other end-of-semester commitments. But the word for this week was "reveal" and so it seemed like a collage of photos of an actual moth would make sense for this word. I am looking forward to trying painting next semester.

This drawing turned out to be a bit disturbing. The moth motif turns out to be useful to try to convey a wide-range of feelings, probably because most of these feelings contrast with the fragile, delicate, and insignificant (relative to human-scale issue) qualities of a moth. This isn't a new direction that I am going in in terms of the feeling conveyed (and good thing it's not the last assignment of the semester!) but I wanted to try something like this at least once.

I took a three week linoleum block printing workshop at the Berkeley Art Studio with a couple of friends in my program that just ended last week. I know that the print that I made (above) is just me dabbling in this medium but I wanted to share it anyways as something new that I worked on.  It's a print of a cricket that I saw on Mt Diablo while camping there a few weeks ago (below). Jerusalem Cricket, Juniper Campground, Mt Diablo Then I felt like working on it a little more and so I illustrated the print with some colored pencils and pastels (below). It didn't turn out how I had hoped but I did spend some time on it.

This is a drawing of a fly. It's more muted than the last two drawings that I've done. I've been in a more quiet mood over the past week. Lots of school work and projects to do and the weather became cool again recently. A couple of weeks ago we talked about how there are moth characters in two Shakespeare plays: Love's Labor's Lost, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. I haven't had time to investigate these but I did find an essay by Virginia Woolf called "The Death of The Moth": http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks12/1203811h.html#ch-02. The essay is much darker (more morbid) than how I feel about the series that I've been making but I still thought it was a beautiful essay. Here is one passage from the last paragraph: It was useless to try to do anything. One could only watch the extraordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom which could, had it chosen, have submerged an entire city, not merely a city, but masses of huma...

I was trying through this drawing to depict that occasional feeling of indignation when you feel like you're too delicate or sensitive for the world (in a kind of dramatic, over the top way). But there is a lot that is going on that is shocking and strange (politically and culturally), and it can be a lot to grapple with sometimes if you try to confront it head on. After working on this drawing I watched the new film about Joan Didion over the weekend called The Center Will Not Hold, and felt like it was related in some ways to my drawing. I have read many of Didion's books and essays spanning her career and even had the chance to hear her speak once in person in Los Angeles. The film takes you through what she was doing in life in parallel with her writing and is called The Center Will Not Hold because early on she reaches a point where she has stopped writing because she does not know how to make sense of how she fits into the world. Didion's essay "Slouching ...

My drawing this week is of a moth close to flames. I guess I am still thinking about the fires in northern California caused by the Diablo winds, and now about the possibility of more fires in southern California (where my family lives), from the high temperatures and Santa Ana winds.  Related to one of the words for this week, these drawings are a way to regain, or reclaim, my time each week for myself.

My drawing this week is of a moth in smokey air. What a strange week we had, with all of the fires north of here, and the red flag warning for the East Bay. Today is the first day that I've been able to go for a run outdoors and it was so wonderful to be able to do that and to breathe fresh air. Tony, last week you recommended that I read the poem Pied Beauty. I found it online and really like it. "Pied," "dappled," "freckled" -- these are all qualities related to color and texture that I'm going for in my drawings right now. Pied Beauty Gerard Manley Hopkins ,  1844  -  1889 Glory be to God for dappled things— For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings; Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough; And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whate...

My drawing this week is of moths again, but I would mainly like to talk about visual form here rather than the subject (the only thing I will say about the subject for now is that it is probably related to the subaltern?). Last week you (Tony) mentioned Christopher Alexander's idea about "field of centers," which you described as how the implied center (center of interest) gives meaning to the rest of the work. I went to the College of Environmental Design Library to check out his book The Nature of Order (1988). The properties of visual form that Christopher Alexander lays out related to the ways that centers can intensify each other is interesting to me. In addition to drawing on examples from fine art, he also uses buildings, floor plans, and city plans to explain what he means by the properties that work together to create compelling visual form. In addition to the field of centers concept, I also especially liked reading about "Roughness" and "...

Similar to last week, I focused on developing the background of the drawing. But this time I wanted the subject to be more integrated into the background. I've still been thinking about the iconography in Morris Graves's work and chose to draw a moth as subject this time.  I looked up  Po Chu-ï and found another poem that I like. Here it is:  Lament for Peony Flowers I grieve for the red peony flowers by the steps. By this evening two branches have withered. Tomorrow morning wind will blow away the rest. At night I keep sad watch, hold flame over the dying red. Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping

I set out to do something more experimental this week. One piece of feedback that you (Tony) gave me last week was to put more emphasis on the sky in the drawing, and then we looked at the Morris Graves painting of the Swan during most of last week's class. What ended up happening is that I spent most of my time working on the background and then I added a strange looking bird at the end. I'm not sure whether I like it or not but it's what I've made for this week. Morris Graves, Moor Swan , 1933

This drawing is of mountains at high elevation on the John Muir Trail on a cloudy day. It's drawn from a photo taken by my friend Shaon, who I hiked the first part of the trail with this summer. The word "reach" makes me think of the word "aspiration." Hiking more long distance trails is one of my aspirations. I turned 30 on Friday. The older I get the more bold I feel in pursuing aspirations that when I was younger I felt were out of reach.

This is a drawing of a lake and mountains on the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevadas.  I used charcoal and markers to make it. Over the past couple of years I have started to really enjoy long hikes. The trip this summer on the John Muir Trail was nearly three weeks long, and the trip I did over the summer of 2016 took about two months to complete. I generally had good weather on the hike, but there were a couple of short rainstorms. More often, there were dark clouds that did not actually turn into thunderstorms. When hiking solo, (which I did for about 50 miles of the 220 mile trail), the experience felt much more solemn than when I was with others because I was more aware of my surroundings.

I'm re-taking the seminar because it's a good outlet for me to have a class that isn't directly related to my intended career focus. At the same time, I like that it's still in the College of Environmental Design. I also like that we spend the first half of the class discussing art and music, and often poetry. This drawing is of mountains at night. I didn't intend to do another mountain-scape. But that's what's on my mind. I hiked the John Muir Trail from Yosemite Valley to Mt. Whitney over the summer. I saw many mountains at night. I will likely spend the next few months thinking about this hike. And then I will spend months planning what hike I want to do over the winter and next summer. I did this drawing using chartpak markers. All of my drawings last year were mixed media. In the coming weeks I would like to do some paintings, probably on wood panels, if I can make some more time. Garnet Lake, John Muir Trail, August 2017

My drawing this week is of some roses that caught my eye in south Berkeley on the way back from a trail run with some friends this past weekend. Below is a picture that I took of the rose bush. Rose Bush, South Berkeley, CA, April 2017 My drawing is on newsprint and I used colored pencil, markers, and pen. The yellow background and light blue leaves match my late grandfather's bedspread. I don't know what this means except that we spent a lot of time with him earlier this spring and this experience has of course stayed with me. Quilt, Carmel, CA March 2017 When I think about something that is "centering," I think about the Grateful Dead. I grew up listening to their music and still listen to it, probably too much. Related to my drawing, a lot of artwork made for the band incorporates roses, and a lot of the lyrics of their songs do, too.  In particular, there is a Jerry Garcia Band song call...

My drawing this week is of irises in the rain at the Free House, the brewery across from campus on Bancroft. I think it relates to the last line of the stanza from the Theodore Roethke poem for this week (I Knew a Woman): Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:    I’m martyr to a motion not my own; What’s freedom for? To know eternity. I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.    But who would count eternity in days? These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:    (I measure time by how a body sways).

My drawing this week is of the blossoming California poppies that I saw when I walked along the Ballona Creek over spring break when I was home in LA. The drawing was made with colored pencil, marker, and gold pen on newsprint. Thanks Tony for posting this Robinson Jeffers poem in connection with the word for this week that mentions a beautiful, unbroken field of poppies in Carmel. I am re-posting it here. Robinson Jeffers Carmel Point  The extraordinary patience of things!  This beautiful place defaced with a crop of suburban houses— How beautiful when we first beheld it, Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs; No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing, Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rockheads— Now the spoiler has come: does it care? Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide That swells and in time will ebb, and all Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty Lives in the very gra...

Wildflowers in the Grapevine, CA (March 2017) I took a bus back to Berkeley from Los Angeles on Friday. I had spent spring break in Los Angeles with my family. The bus was a double-decker Megabus that I got on at Union Station in downtown LA. I got to the station early enough that I was able to get a seat on the second floor of the bus. There were windows that were probably four feet long and there was also a skylight, so I had a good view of the wildflowers blooming in the Grapevine heading north on I-5. The Grapevine is that pass that you travel through right before hitting the Central Valley. I've driven through the Grapevine so many times, either on the way to Berkeley, or Monterey, or Yosemite, and the hills have never looked like the pictures above. To be honest I've probably never really looked closely at these hills. I thought the Grapevine would be a good subject for the word this week because they are so easy to overlook. I also did a drawing of some ...

The word for this week felt very appropriate. I also like the lyric from the song associated with the word: "Just like a tree, standing by the waterside..." This past weekend I visited my grandfather in Carmel. He is very sick and in hospice care at home. I took a picture of some oak trees on the way back to Berkeley for this drawing. The colors are loosely based on an oil painting above my grandfather's bed of a field of red poppies. Below the painting on the mantel there were some yellow daffodils from Trader Joe's. I wanted to make a drawing made up of mainly these two colors.

The word for this week is "Totem/Guide," but I was thinking about feedback that I received during last week's class when I made this latest drawing -- so this is actually "Trace Part II."  I thought more carefully about the materials that I am using this week -- the feedback that I got last week is that construction paper might not be accomplishing what I want it to. So I bought a sheet of soft, handmade pale green paper from the art store on Shattuck and made it even softer by crumpling it up before smoothing it out to work on. (Thanks for the idea, Benjamin!) I then used pen, marker, and colored pencil for the drawing. I want the overall effect to look foggy and indeterminant.

The word for this week is "trace," in the sense of the passing of something. My drawing is of a desert storm. I was thinking about stormy weather because I went to Yosemite with some friends for Presidents' Day weekend, and it was snowy and foggy. Whenever I visit Yosemite I think about the passing of time. The park is significant to me (as it is to a lot of people) because I used to visit every summer with my family. There is a writeup in The New Yorker that was published earlier this winter about the death of a sequoia in a winter storm. I had not "met" the tree that the essay is about but the way that Nathan Heller writes about it describes how I feel about Yosemite in my most solemn, macabre moments. Visiting a place again and again, year after year, annunciates the slow progress of human growth. A kid that you recall shows up, abruptly, with the problems and the powers of a woman or a man. That’s what the tunnel tree in Big Trees State Park ...

My drawing this week is of the San Ysidro mountains, above Borrego Springs in Anza-Borrego. I accentuated the peak of the mountain to relate it to the word for this week, which is "reach." In connection with this drawing, a friend recommended that I read Mary Austen's 1903 "Land of Little Rain," a series of essays about her travels through the Mojave desert.  I have hiked through the Mojave desert. Last summer my partner Johnathan and I hiked through a 42 mile stretch of the Mojave desert that had no natural water source, carrying 20+ pounds of water each. In December we also spent some time in the desert -- in Anza-Borrego, south of the Mojave. (This time it was winter and it rained and we were also not as adventurous -- we stayed in a hotel).  Here are some passages that seemed most important from "Land of Little Rain:" What the Mojave desert looks like: This is the nature of that country. There are hills, rounded, blun...