Rousing Repetition

First of all, thank you to all you amazing, wonderful, caring folks who sent me notes and words of encouragement and offers of help and even a book in one case, all due to my little tendinitis issue. You are the most amazing people. What a fantastic community we have! I expect most of you are dealing with something frustratingly disruptive in your life and things a lot worse than my little annoyance in many cases so know that my heart goes out to you too. Life is challenging. So, let’s go out and wrestle it and show the universe what we’re made of!

I do have more news but I’m going to save the update on my situation until the end so you can enjoy some artwork first.

Okay, on to the contemplation of art!

Rousing Repetition

This week I want to talk about repetition. Do you like heavy repetition in artwork, where a single form, mark, or motif is repeated over and over? Saying it like that makes it sound boring and unimaginative. But I think repetition has gotten a bad rap. I mean, sure, in some circumstances, like when someone says the same thing over and over again in a conversation, it is going to get on your nerves. But when it comes to design, repetition can be mesmerizing, energetic, and downright stunning. The trick is to put some rhythm and variation into that repetition. Or at least, if it’s very static, it’s best if it is obvious that a lack of variation is intentional to convey stillness, poise, or something of that sort.

I thought we’d pull up some really beautiful examples of repetition to prove the point. You’ll note in all these pieces that although form, shape, motif, or other characteristics are repeated, variation in other aspects of the design choices brings in the energy and rhythm that draws us in. The repeating element also serves to create cohesiveness and unity amongst all the other elements

So, as we go through these this week, identify the repeating design elements in each piece and then the variation that makes the repetition so interesting for you. I’ll show the piece first before I talk about it so you have a chance to consider and see what you come up with. Mind you, you will often come up with things that I won’t and that doesn’t mean that I’m right and you’re not. When art is viewed, it has to be fundamentally about personal interpretation so there is a ton of room for your unique point of view. Asking yourself these questions that I periodically challenge you with just gets you to actively think about the work, homes your eye, and, hopefully, gives you the understanding to verbalize those things so you can translate them into aspects of your own work.

So, let’s get to it!

 

Music in the Monotony

I am going heavy this week on non-polymer artists and I may do a bit more of this going forward too. There is just so much great design amongst craftspeople of other mediums that we could really learn from. I find it refreshing and immensely inspiring to consider how to get the aspects that I enjoy in the artwork of other mediums into my polymer designs. I hope you agree and will stick this out with me! But we’ll start with polymer work.

Here we have some really obvious repetition with a couple of bracelets from Maria Belkomor. A lot of things are being repeated here. How many do you count?

Depending on how you count, there are either two repeated elements– the black carved beads and the disk elements – or maybe four if you count the stacks of beads and the colors. Or maybe you counted more. Everything in these are repeated except for the clasps so pretty much every element can be counted as a repeating one. Variation and, especially, the contrast in the colors and the contrast in the shape between the round beads and the flat disks is what keeps the repetition from being boring. It’s very regular but the bracelets are still fun and visually engaging pieces.

 

Keep in mind, repetition doesn’t mean it needs to all be lined up to engage repetition. Take a look at the pieces below. Parallel lines are used over and over again but aren’t always the same types of parallel lines nor are they seated in the same orientation.

Anna Nel has a lot of fun with her bouncy graphic look by repeating parallel lines over and over but varying them from solid line sets to lines of blended clay, adding pops of color and focal points with the irregularly placed round cane slices. Her variation in color, going from black-and-white to very saturated hues doesn’t hurt the impact of these pieces either.

 

Looking outside of polymer, it is not hard to find gorgeous examples of repetition in construction jewelry like beadwork.

Obviously, the repetition here is primarily in the square beads, all lined up with the same orientation, as well as the repeated dangles. The designer, Beth Graham of Semper Fi designs on Etsy, switches up the color in the squares and the length of the dangles for a simple but very effective variation within the design. There are much more intricate bead designs out there, but I like this example because it highlights the concept in an easy to identify way and works to great effect.

 

I wonder if, in polymer, we might use repetition more often if it was not so easy for us to vary up our elements. I do think there is such a discipline in trying to create dynamic and intriguing pieces without using a wide range of variety to carry it. Just look at this necklace below. It could be polymer but is gorgeously carved, colored, and polished wood.

Liv Blavap’s works are amazing. She works with repetition in a way that it somehow becomes the focal point of her pieces. I think it’s because there’s an almost seamless transition in the variation between one element and the next, making a smooth undulation in the form and, collectively, feeling like one continuous piece even though it is dozens, maybe a couple hundred, individual elements. This approach and her workmanship make you hyper-aware that basic forms are being repeated, if changing along the way.  If you’re unfamiliar with Liv’s work, jump over to this site for a quick peek at more of these stunning necklaces of hers.

 

Okay, one more piece that is not polymer but so readily could be and I think will be quite inspiring for those of you who like to work with sheets of thin polymer or, looking at the pattern only, cool geometric cane work. Paper does really lend itself to repetition as seen by this and the paper necklace of the opening image.

This is paper jewelry by Dutch artists Nel Linssen. Paper quite readily, and beautifully, lends itself to dynamic repetition. The energy here comes with the variation within each element that has been repeated. It doesn’t hurt that they’re basically arrow shapes all pointing inwards making it feel like all the movement is strongly and persistently moving towards the center. Yes, there is strength in repetition as well!

 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (as they used to say) …

Okay, so, a little bit of an update on the situation over here at Tenth Muse Arts headquarters:

The not so great news is that the conclusion about my tendinitis progressed into something called tendinosis which takes a lot longer to heal and is why I am still dealing with it. On top of that, I have some possible physiological issues which may be the cause of my slow healing (on top of working too much, of course!) The good news is it is all fixable. However, I am going to have to disrupt my usual schedule to deal with this and, with the tendinosis, I am being told that I should stay off my keyboard as much as possible for the next 3-6 months. Ack! That means I can’t do layout, photo adjustments, or anything else that takes just a ton of mouse clicking and keyboard shortcuts. I can still write thanks to speech to text software but not much of anything else.

Translation… I have had to make the decision to halt production on The Polymer Studio magazine for the time being. I’ve also decided subscription purchases will not be available during this time because I just can’t take money for something that isn’t actively in process. That just feels wrong. And yes, I considered bringing on people to help but it would take a while to get anyone up to speed on graphics and editing work and if I’m going to work on myself, I can’t add to my schedule. My crazy long workdays are why I’m having the physiological issues, so I really have to take a pretty full break.

So, I’m making plans to play around with creating some other stuff that would be doable with written, spoken, or videotaped content because I am just not good at not being productive. But without deadlines, I can take my time. And, yes, I do plan to continue to post the blog. I like chatting with you all too much to stop if I don’t really have to!

So, some weeks I might have to go a little bit light, but I do plan to be here to join you on Sunday mornings for low contemplative art. Do please join me next Sunday – I’m putting together a survey to see what you all would like me to talk about on the blog and my other possible projects. I’m working on gathering goodies for a giveaway to go with the survey so don’t miss that!

Have a wonderful, creative, healthy, and inspiring week!