Weavers and Painters  

Reflections on diligence  

He considers his digital work to be the same as that of the weaver or a painter who works diligently on detail-intensive tasks, only instead of threads-per-inch or hairline-thin brush strokes, he elaborates on the fine detail of Internet web pages’ links.  

Model ship 

Two things I want to do when I retire is, one, build a model of the Emeralda, the ship of my vision and, secondly, write the saga of the Emeralda—the mythology of my art and craft. Until the time I can feel good about the daily grind of starting the Seattle Printmakers Center on firm ground, however, I will continue with the means to this end.

Painting 

I have thought, too, of going back to my roots in visual art and making a painting or two in the manner of classical work. For example, I could enroll in one of the Ateliers at Gage Academy and get good instruction about the methods used by painters in the 19^th Century, and apply these methods to a great maritime painting of the Emeralda under the great wave.

As I work on a web page today, making sure every link within the page is correctly named, and the images of the correct resolution and reasonably sized for speedy downloads, or going back to an image to slice and dice it for a smaller bit count, I think about painting with the same arduous and detailed work.

Weaving 

Or, I imagine myself as a weaver or working on a needlepoint canvas, choosing the right thread weight and color, fiber, etc. so it will make a beautiful piece based, perhaps, on the voyage of the Emeralda. There are other fiber-based art forms, like embroidery and tapestry art from which to choose. These all require the hours and months of careful, detailed work and result in a fine, finished work.

If I were retired, I wouldn’t have a care about what became of the finished product, because I would have been enjoying the process all along, in my retirement, my retreat from the need to build the Seattle Printmakers Center and, of course, the rapid prototyping of the twenty startups that will finance and sustain the overall enterprise.

So it goes 

Moments ago I was adding a few words and links to a page on my latest creation, a prototype for the Rembrandt and Wine, and, as often happens, I saw myself like the painter of a highly detailed, classical narrative oil painting or a fiber piece. Now, it’s back to my digital art.

For, in today’s world, the artist’s function is not to make paintings and weavings such as I have in mind (unless he or she has abandoned the need to feel useful to society and culture, as I will feel when I retire) but the artist’s function, or value to society and culture, is to work partly in the digital media and partly in the real, physical mediums at the same time. It’s my joy to have come to a place—Seattle—and a time when it is possible and enjoyable to be able to work this way on the Seattle Printmakers Center.