Karyl Dokos

Capercaillie

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:54:00 +0000

Named for its unusual call, the Capercaillie, which means "horse of the woods" in Gaelic, is currently on the endangered species list. Read more and listen to its call on the Royal Society for Protection of Birds (RSBP) website.

Birds 18 Feb

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 00:20:00 +0000

Dream of Purple Corn Cob and the Plan of S. Vitale, Ravenna

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:08:00 +0000

Two images in one dream-- a purple corn cob, and the floor plan of the Basilica of S. Vitale in Ravenna, Italy. Both are organized about a center, and each is associated with small parts and pieces-- the corn cob is made up of individual kernels of corn; the basilica floor plan has multiple arched spaces around the center (see floor plan), its walls covered with incredible mosaics. It's been 17 years since I've been there, but it's not the sort of place one forgets.

It's occurred to me that these two images could be a metaphor for the architecture of the mind, presenting a simple structure that organizes complex parts and layers about a central open space. Oh, if only life were so tidy!

my sketches upon waking

S. Vitale Floor plan

S. Vitale, Ravenna.
Photo credit: Chichester College

Empress Theodora
Photo Credit: Europe & Me Magazine

Floor mosaic. S. Vitale
Photo credit: Rollingharbour's Image Gallery

Tufted Puffin

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:34:00 +0000

Tufted puffin at the Alaska Sea Life Center in Seward, Alaska.
Photo courtesy of Birding Information.

I love the articulated parts and construction of the beak.

The eye is almost human.

Portrait of a Man (eye detail)
1475-6 Antonello da Messina.
National Gallery, London

Zig-ZagTextiles

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 02:15:00 +0000

Textile in London shop window-2012

Andean textile-1300 ACE. Cotton gauze with twisted thread.

Two very different textiles with zig-zag patterns (note the zig-zag in the letter "Z"). A friend took the photo of fabric while in London. The other is from a book on Andean textiles--"Textiles of the Andes- Catalog of Amano Collection", from the Amano Museum in Lima, a museum devoted to textiles, ceramics, and various objects of Pre-Columbian Peruvian cultures.

Bird Postcards from Two Friends

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:40:00 +0000

Alexander McQueen

Charley Harper

Children's Reading Room, Stockholm Public Library

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:09:00 +0000

Since I've been dreaming of libraries and children's reading rooms (previous post), I immediately thought of the most amazing one I've ever seen, which is in the Stockholm Public Library, designed by architect Gunnar Asplund. Because it's small, it's a difficult room to photograph, so I was happy to come across this beautiful photo by Hassan Bagheri. The reading room is tucked away several floors above the ground and is accessed by a dark, curved, tunnel-like staircase. The trek from the lighted entry-way below up to this hidden enclave of the imagination is fantastic in the true fantasy sense of the word.

The fresco on the curved wall is all about sleeping and dreams-- it's a place with knights, wars, and dragons, where people dance, ride zebras and hover in mid-air, dangling from a parachute-like umbrella. Sounds like a dream to me.

-Photo credit: Hassan Bagheri.

Dream

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:48:00 +0000

Dreaming in Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:17:00 +0000

I dream in pictures, in series of isolated images or vignettes, with specific details of color, materials, construction and textures. I feel there's a direct link between this kind of dreaming and the "Flipstrip" flashcards my mother used to teach us language-- that the language of pictures I learned from looking at individual objects on cards as a child went far beyond vowels and consonants, that it's how I speak it to myself at night in my dreams. I like the idea of images with little or no narrative, that anyone could take them, mix them up, and make their own story, just like the "Flipstrip" cards.

The pictures shown above are a sequence of images from my dream last night.
The first is a grey plasterboard panel with markings mapped in space that remind me of the surface of the moon. The top of it is bowed, like the decorative lunette panels you might see above doors in old houses. The second through fourth pictures are of a man made of flat, cut-out, metal rings. In the dream he was El Cid who walks along a ridge at sunset and dies a hinged man. The last three pictures are a vignette: an artist who wears a lab coat works with tires and red and blue shreds of rubber. His studio is crowded but organized, and is next to a tennis court-- mesh netting and chain link fence duly noted.

Below is the page in my sketchbook, where I record my dreams each morning.

Tufted puffin

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:42:00 +0000

Puffins 3"x3"

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 01:58:00 +0000

Ink and colored pencil on paper.

Hands: Assyrian Stone Relief and Hand of Fatima doorknocker

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:35:00 +0000

More of the pictures my friend sent me from London... these from the British Museum. The top two photos are details from Assyrian stone relief (below) from the throne room of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud in northern Iraq. The lacy cryptography across the hand in the second photo is particularly haunting. Read more:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/me/s/stone_throne_room_relief.aspx

This bronze doorknocker is a Hand of Fatima (19th c?), that I bought years ago in the Muslim Quarter of Cordoba. It's meant to protect against evil spirits entering the house. I keep a strand of freshwater pearls wrapped around it, a necklace that was a favorite of mine in college. I like the combination of bronze and pearls.

Note the flower detail on the wrist of both the doorknocker and the Egyptian stone relief-- decorative motifs that persist throughout cultures and history.

I love that my friend sent me these photos of hands, and that I could answer with a complimentary image from my own random collection of objects. Our mutual attraction to similar objects, images, and ideas is a strong point of connection in our friendship.

Analogies: London silver and sculptor Tony Cragg

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:34:00 +0000

On a recent trip to London, a friend of mine took the photo above of a shop window full of silver. It made me think of a Tony Cragg bottle sculpture that I saw last year in an exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. Together they make a great study in objects and materials: each is a group of objects of varying size and shape all made of the same material. The materials themselves tell us a lot about the reflective and refractive qualities of light.

The silver is practically psychedelic in its optical distortion. The shapes of the individual pieces dissolve into streaky lines and curves that are multiplied exponentially by reflections. It's hard to see where one piece ends and the next begins. By contrast, each piece of glassware is easily distinguishable from the others; shapes and edges are clearly defined by the soft glow of light emitted from the frosted surface of the glass. The overall impression is one of autonomy of the individual forms as well as unity of the whole.

I asked my friend, before she left for her trip, to take pics of random things that sparked her interest. I thought it would be fun to do a series of posts which paired her observations with my responses to the images. This is the first in a series of posts inspired by her photos.

Sewing at sunset

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 00:01:00 +0000

Sample quilt

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 22:45:00 +0000

This is a quilt I made years ago with upholstery samples. At the time I was working with architects and interior designers, and there always seemed to be a cache fabric samples leftover from various projects. Over time I collected enough to make a couple of quilts.

I love to think of each of the fabrics separately, as well as how they work together within the overall composition. The red piece with green and gold stripes (below) is linen velvet from France. There is also a swatch of mohair velvet, the classic upholstery used for concert hall seating. It's wonderful to have personal associations with things we use, in this case to climb in under a blanket and imagine being wrapped in beautiful music.

The Singer that Purrs

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:06:00 +0000

This is the 1950 Singer sewing machine that my mom received as a college graduation gift from my grandparents. She kept it in perfect condition with all of the instruction booklets and attachments intact. The diagrams and instructions for maintenance are crystal clear, insuring that a woman could service the machine completely on her own. No phone calls, call-waiting, or waiting around for a technician. You can see what's wrong with it and fix it yourself. Amazing.

Please note in the Description that "it's especially designed for operation by electricity". I've cleaned and oiled it according to the instruction booklet and now it's ready to sew. My sister says it purrs.

Three Dresses: 1900, 1950's, 1970's

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:00 +0000

Three dresses from different time periods, all sewn by someone in my family. I think the oldest dress was worn by my great grandmother, the second by my mother or aunts and probably sewn by my grandmother, the green one sewn by my mother and perhaps worn by one of my sisters? I'll have to ask around about that.

A friend commented that all three dresses are relevant to today's fashion, which is not only inclusive of different eras, cultural and ethnic influences, but puts them all together, creating a the-more-the-mix-the-merrier sensibility. An interesting comment on nostalgia and fashion is a recent article Kurt Anderson wrote for Vanity Fair in which he asserts that our current need to recycle the past is a way to cope with the speed of technological change in the present and that "popular style has been stuck on repeat, consuming the past instead of creating the new."

I would agree with that but don't necessarily think our desire to keep bits and pieces of the past around like a favorite blanket or dish of comfort food is a bad thing. I do feel lost and completely overwhelmed by the vastness and complexity of today's technological landscape, and therefore remain firmly attached to my flip phone (no texting), cd's, and boom box. As long as I can talk with my friends and listen to music, I'm happy. A digital camera and this blog are my biggest concessions to technology.

With respect to fashion, I think there's something wonderful about accessing the spirit of different eras through the use of expressive elements such as color, pattern, cut, and details, as a way of connecting, not just with the past, but with who we are and how we live as humans. Hopefully that desire for grounding and continuity through the things we make, use, and wear is something that won't change, even with the release of the fastest, newest i-Phone... or the one after that, and the one after that.....

In my studio

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 14:59:00 +0000

Little vignettes of objects in my studio keep memories of places and friends part of my everyday life. A card of a New Orleans oak tree and the view of the ancient oak tree just outside my window connect my childhood in New Orleans with my present surroundings in Texas. In the lower photo is a note card from a good friend who, coincidentally has a preference for the same Crane's Florentine stationery that I also love, a favorite birthday card with a parrot that commemorates my fiftieth b-day which I celebrated this past year with long-time friends, and a Bertoia-esque doll's chair-- a holiday gift from a friend who was in architecture school with me.

Pear Pomegranate Pie -- thank you NYT

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 20:56:00 +0000

The results of a pear pie with pomegranate molasses courtesy of this recipe:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/15/dining/153crex.html
For the crust, I followed the instructions in the video that accompanies the recipe. It was the most successful result I've ever had with pastry and was extremely tasty, but between prep time, refrigeration in between mixing and rolling out the crust, and caramelizing the fruit prior to baking, it was very labor intensive. I've decided that pies are perhaps best left to once-a-year special occasions.

In progress

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:06:00 +0000

Moving along on the pillows-- the various shapes, forms, textures, and patterns lend themselves to a cut-and-paste collage process, except I don't have to paste anything because the fabrics usually stick to themselves. Very handy.

Being from a family that saved everything (which is ironic since I am easily overwhelmed by too much stuff), I always have plenty of materials to work with in the form of several generations of old linens and fabric remnants. For example, the grey fabric pieces (not the felt) are from my sister's black-and-white/geometric-patterned cotton sewing phase that happened sometime in the 80's. The white with green windowpane fabric is from a 1950/60's cotton cup towel.

Between the graphics, color, and representational elements, I'm beginning to realize how hard it is to create a complex, yet balanced composition. I probably need to give myself a break from them and come back with a fresh eye in a couple of days.

I do like the abstracted flower shapes, which are based on camellias in the print by Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige.

Mock-up for pillows

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:56:00 +0000

Works in progress. These are some pillows I'm making for my sister from burlap, silk, and felt made from 100% recycled plastic bottles. They are variations on the smaller compositions shown in Urban Blocks and Flowers and More Flowers

To accommodate the change to a larger scale, I've added blocks of color, as shown in the upper photo. Maybe I will go back and add in some of the flower details. I want them to retain a strong, graphic blockiness and not become too cute. Some of the orange silk is leftover from the hat I made for my friend.

Audubon Birds of America: Partial views

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 17:21:00 +0000

Line and color

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:48:00 +0000

.....I've been obsessively drawing birds in squares, filling page after page of my sketchbook with them, a kind of aesthetic meditation. At the same time I've been making small color studies. I'd like the birds and the color to come together, but I don't know yet how-- what technique or media. I'll just have to wait and see.

Poppy Pillow - Fine Cell Work

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 23:51:00 +0000

I couldn't resist posting more of Fine Cell Work prison needlework. This poppy pillow is fantastic.

Sketches from "Gifts of the Sultans" MFAH

noreply@blogger.com (KD) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 21:11:00 +0000

................Sketches from Gifts of the Sultans, a fantastic show at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Small illustrations from book plates have entire worlds of color and detail contained in 6"x 8" space. When I first saw the giraffe I thought he was wearing a Missoni sweater. I've had dreams with animals that have unusual patterns on their hide or skin, so there was an immediate familiarity and attraction to the image.