BOOK: Shibusa - PART 2 - Chapter 4

SHIBUSA - Extracting Beauty
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PART TWO
Shibusa: An Artist's Perspective
Chapter 4: Low tech and high tech: the tail should not wag the dog
by Pip Dickens


Extract (with kind permission of University of Huddersfield Press)

The Cherry Tree (In Memoriam 2011), 152.5 x 152.5 cm, oil on canvas, Pip Dickens

. 

Copyright Pip Dickens

The issue of exploiting computer technology is really a question of how it is exploited and to what ends, for there are skills in using technology (as indeed with gaining expertise in anything). Richard Sennett states in a discussion with Grayson Perry and Laurie Taylor (Thinking Allowed, BBC Radio 4) that we need to be careful about assessing what skills stand for:

What tends to happened in Britain is that
the word ‘skills’ stands for procedure –
how to do ‘X’. It doesn’t stand for ongoing
experience of doing ‘X’ better, so when we
test young kids we test whether they can do
a procedure or whether they are capable of
learning from whatever baseline they start
from them. It is tick-box learning.

Sennett also defines the relationship between the artisan and technology:

The greatest dilemma faced by the modern
artisan-craftsman is the machine. Is it a
friendly tool or an enemy replacing work
of the human hand? In the economic
history of skilled manual labour, machinery
that began as a friend has often ended up as
an enemy.

One of the most significant elements of our collaboration [Monty Adkins and Pip Dickens] was having to exchange concepts and developments with another person – things that are normally very private and difficult to articulate. The received image of a sketch does not always convey, wholly,what the artist is aiming to accomplish.  Sketches are visual/audible notations for self-reference – shorthand solutions, or approaches, indicating processes that might be called into play in a painting or sound work. The sketch, be it hand-wrought, or digitally created, can be misleading, or mysterious, to anyone other than the artist, without some form of supplementary explanation – appraised only on its visual/audible merits, not for its hidden meaning or intent. Over a period of some months we exchanged numerous sketches (see Figures 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5), before developing preliminary paintings and sound works. This process prompted valuable discussions of the sketches where both our interpretations and ideas could be shared. 

The sketches, then, are thoughts in their nascency – sometimes fixing only on a single aspect of a concept. As a process, or ‘tool’, the sketch has four purposes: exploration, germination, filtration and design. Different artists’ ‘sketches’ filter and evolve concepts in different ways – that is the freedom artists have in developing skills independently of an external agency. It is research, and research is part and parcel of many artists’ practice. But the how, why and what of this research is individually determined.

From Gillies to Gaga: the sculptures of Paddy Hartley

Paddy Hartley’s Project Façade exemplifies how a dedicated and passionate interest in a subject matter can result in a body of artworks that develop a momentum of their own. Hartley believes in the skill of making – hands-on – but has also been shrewd in exploiting high technology in order to share the histories and research behind the work and so place his artworks in specific context. Project Façade is a series of 16 sculpturally embroidered garments that interpret and symbolise personal histories of servicemen who suffered severe facial injuries during the First World War. Hartley’s focus is on the New Zealand surgeon Sir Harold Delf Gillies, who developed crucial facial surgery techniques. Gillies worked with pioneering surgeon Hippolyte Morestin (dubbed the ‘Father of the Mouths’ for his innovative surgery in skin grafting), which Gillies observed in during the First World War at the British General Hospital in Rouen. Gillies returned to England and began his own groundbreaking work in the field of maxillofacial surgery. His work predates that of his cousin Archibald McIndoe, and his equally extraordinary work (with Rainsford Mowlem and Tommy Kilner) with facially disfigured Second World War servicemen, which became known as the ‘Guinea Pig Club’: Archibald McIndoe went to the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead.  Mowlem worked at St. Albans and Kilner at Roehampton, while Gillies established the army service at Rooksdown Hospital, near Basingstoke. All were involved in the treatment of facial casualties in the Second World War and McIndoe in particular was instrumental in the rehabilitation of his patients, the majority of whom were badly
burned bomber crews and fighter pilots.

The large proportion of serious injuries and disfigurement in the First World War was unprecedented, due to mass production and development of artillery. Guns, rifles, tanks, machine guns, gas and grenades bombarded and killed, injured and traumatised surviving servicemen. The first self-powered machine gun, the Maxim, was nicknamed the ‘devil’s paintbrush’ because of the physical damage it wrought in the First World War. Such damage was graphically illustrated in François Dupeyron’s 2001 film La Chambre des officiers, based on the book of the same name by Marc Dugain, which charts the experiences of Adrien Fournier, a lieutenant in the Engineers during the First World War. Fournier was struck down in the field  and was removed to a maxillofacial unit shared by similar victims, and spent the rest of the war undergoing experimental reconstructive surgery.

[End of Extract] This Chapter then goes on to review the works of Paddy Hartley in depth.

More information about this book, and ordering information:

Book details:
Shibusa - Extracting Beauty
Edited by Monty Adkins and Pip Dickens
ISBN-13: 978-1-86218-101-4
Size: 280 x 210mm
Pages: 144
Number of images: 97
Images in colour: 89
published by University Huddersfield Press
Email enquiries to: university.press@hud.ac.uk

Online Shop

BOOK: Shibusa - PART 2 - Chapter 3

SHIBUSA - Extracting Beauty
See Overview if you are not sure what this page is about (it can be found on the header bar also)

PART TWO
Shibusa: An Artist's Perspective
Chapter 3:  Pattern rhythm, vibration and colour
by Pip Dickens


Extract (with kind permission of University of Huddersfield Press)

Figure 3.2 Dickens, Blue Caribbean Vibration, Moiré series, 2003, oil on canvas, 152 × 152 cm.
Collection of artist, © Pip Dickens

The katagami stencil, while evidently a practical tool for the purpose of colouring and
patterning a variety of substrates, including kimono fabric, has recently found itself an object of desire in the West. Collectors,including myself, are attracted by its many startling qualities: intricate, delicate and complex designs, many of which convey optically vibrant arrangements. Given the use of the stencils in busy textile workshops, where dyes and resist materials are pressed through them again and again, it is not surprising that few of them survive in good condition today. However, whatever the aesthetic or design quality of the stencil, its most valuable asset is the evidence it provides of the virtuosity of the craftsperson – the hand skills of the artisan.  The Leverhulme Trust Award  collaboration with Monty Adkins has used the katagami stencil as a symbol of how we can best investigate the synergy between music and painting. By drawing on the stencil’s qualities (and that of the stencil’s maker), themes emerged that directed us towards specific approaches in developing new works and the elements contained in those works.
 
It is important to emphasise how the stencil has developed a symbolic role (and why I have linked it directly to Richard Sennett’s writing on craftsmanship) because elements of the stencil’s aesthetic properties have also been absorbed and explored within preliminary works. The stencil, therefore, has played two distinct roles in this project: an important visual reference, and a symbol of good  making skills. 

It is also useful to reiterate the ‘imperative to protect performance’ mentioned in the
previous chapter, because continuity – skill of control – of the handmade mark is an important component within painting: be it through rehearsal (repeated many times),
through experimentation (trial and error) or through the action of painting where a skill of rhythmic control may be called into play. The same is true of musical performance and composition.  

In this chapter I introduce three series of visual artworks: my own Moiré series, paintings by Bridget Riley and photo-booth collages by Liz Rideal. All these works evidence these skills consciously, without relegating repetition to the banality of design or ‘wallpaper’. Rather, these are highly original approaches due to the physical engagement of the artist through innovation; the skill of repetition and rehearsal; and the ‘X’ factor which, ultimately, is the role that an artwork plays while in production: the work creates a ‘dialogue’, or response to, actions imposed upon it during its development. Each of these artists demonstrates a very distinct and individual approach to pattern, rhythm, vibration and colour. Moreover, each evidences different levels of use of technology and hand skills.
 
In Chapter 2, I introduced Sennett’s comments about skills and the corollary between those of the Japanese katagami cutter, revealing the importance of time, physical coordination and ritual in order to hone skills. In the nineteenth century the publisher Andrew White Tuer also signified the importance of practice and repetition in Japanese skills in order to become expert: 

The Japanese, who has naturally a fine sense of colour and form, is taught draftsmanship in the same manner as he is taught writing – that is, copies are ‘set’ which are laboriously transcribed over and over again until the pupil can draw, say, a chrysanthemum of conventional shape, almost as easily as you and I … can
scribble a b c.

[End of Extract] This Chapter then goes on to review the works of Pip Dickens, Bridget Riley and Liz Rideal in depth.

More information about this book, and ordering information:

Book details:
Shibusa - Extracting Beauty
Edited by Monty Adkins and Pip Dickens
ISBN-13: 978-1-86218-101-4
Size: 280 x 210mm
Pages: 144
Number of images: 97
Images in colour: 89
published by University Huddersfield Press
Email enquiries to: university.press@hud.ac.uk

Online Shop

BOOK: Shibusa - PART 2 - Chapter 2

SHIBUSA - Extracting Beauty
See Overview if you are not sure what this page is about (it can be found on the header bar also)

PART TWO
Shibusa: An Artists Perspective
Chapter 2: The katagami stencil: handmade machine
by Pip Dickens

Extract (with kind permission of University of Huddersfield Press)

Figure 2.1 A katagami stencil: Japanese hand-cut stencil for printing on to kimono fabric. Collection of Pip Dickens, © Pip Dickens

We have trained our hands in repetition; we are alert rather than bored because we have developed the skill of anticipation. But equally, the person able to perform a duty again and again has acquired a technical skill, the rhythmic skill of a craftsman, whatever the god or gods to which he or she subscribes.
(Richard Sennett, The Craftsman)

 
'The Craftsman' is the first of Richard Sennett's three volumes on material culture, with particular srcutiny of the 'skill of making things well'.  He refers to many areas of craftsmanship, including that of arts and crafts, as well as music, architecture, social use of buildings, psychology and interaction within the workplace. Frequent reference is made in his thorough and enlightening investigations of oriental methods of working:in the industrial context of companies such as Nokia, or in his discussion of ‘the lesson of minimum force’ – understanding and controlling muscles in order to master the skill of using knives well. 


Rhythm, ritual and respect for the sharp knife are key to becoming expert at controlling the tool. Most important of all is time. In what Sennett calls the ‘rhythm of concentration’, the commitment of practice to become expert at anything (to gain tacitknowledge) requires the investment of 10,000 hours. Sennett converts these hours into practising 3 hours a day for 10 years. This is a rule of thumb, but he points out that compressed apprenticeships – for example that of a goldsmith, or the intensive training undergone in a doctor’s internship –while taking fewer years, equates to roughly the same amount of time. His reference is to psychologist Daniel Levitin’s This is Your Brain on Music, where this magic number keeps cropping up in the context of how long it takes composers, athletes and authors to become expert.

It comes as no surprise to have found this same period of time – 10 years – quoted in research into how long it takes a cutter of katagamistencils to become expert. Moreover, the Japanese fully understand, and celebrate, the ‘rhythm of concentration’ their artists and artisans have dedicated their lives to it in order to become expert – many being honoured as Living National Treasures. The way in which these individuals are of significant cultural importance reveals just how significant physical skills are to the Japanese in general.  Japan has an international reputation for its technological sophistication, for embracing machine production and for pioneering innovation. But there is something else, too – a qualitative approach that harks back to the fundamental elements of craft: of making things well and investing time in learning (research). Research results in innovation and this, in turn, also throws up failed attempts along the way. Failures, therefore, are as useful as the successes if they are appreciated within the context of learning. Some failures result in new innovations and inventions. Failures offer three choices: exploit them in the current work, acknowledge them and use them as a positive approach in future works, or acknowledge they are redundant – aesthetically and practicably never going to work. Thus a ‘no go’ area is as useful as a ‘green light’ when investing time and materials into an artist’s practice.

Ise katagami is a Japanese method of making stencils with fine and elaborate patterns, which can be used to print on to a variety of substrates (this is called katazome). The katagami stencil is a sophisticated paper stencil created with a variety of sharp knives or specially shaped punches (see images).  The history of the katagami stencil can be traced back to stencilling patterns on samurai warriors’ armour (leather helmets and stirrups, for example) in the Nara period (710–794). Some sources state that katagami already existed by the late Muromachi period (around 570).

The Book of Delightful and Strange Designs, Being One Hundred Facsimile Illustrations of the Art of the Japanese Stencil-Cutter, published in 1893 by Andrew White Tuer, suggests that the use of the katagami stencil flourished in the seventeenth century (Edo period 1603–1868). Miyazaki Yuzen (referred to as Someya Yuzen by Tuer) is identified as an artist of great significance in popularising the development of yuzen-zome–  hand-painted designs on silk using resist-paste techniques and, most importantly, dye-fast techniques. Miyazaki Yuzen was originally a painter of Japanese fans. His artworks were very popular and he was persuaded to produce works on kimono fabric, which, in turn, resulted in a unique style of hand-painting becoming highly popular in the Meiji period (from 1868). His new innovations proliferated across the textiles industry during this time, and so began a boom in designing, printing and painting on fabric – examples being the kimono and polychromatic suspended pictures called kakemonos. It is interesting to note how an artist working in a specialised area can bring new innovations to another quite distinct practice.  Subsequently, Kyoto-born artisan Jisuke Hirose further developed techniques in yuzen-zome(or katazome): printing pattern using paper stencils and chemical dye, which further popularised these associated techniques on a range of textile  substrates. Yuzen technique employs two methods of approach: tegaki (hand- dyeing/painting) using brushes (painting); and kata(stencil-dyeing), a technique to dye silk using a cut-out paper template (printing). 

Figure 2.2 Detail of a katagami stencil showing itoire work (silk meshing) for
structural support and resilience. This image represents about 2.5 × 2.5 cm
of the cut stencil. Collection of Pip Dickens, © Pip Dickens

[End of extract - more information on this book and purchase details below]

More information about this book, and ordering information:

Book details:
Shibusa - Extracting Beauty
Edited by Monty Adkins and Pip Dickens
ISBN-13: 978-1-86218-101-4
Size: 280 x 210mm
Pages: 144
Number of images: 97
Images in colour: 89
published by University Huddersfield Press
Email enquiries to: university.press@hud.ac.uk

Online Shop