Art Deco design has been a strong influence in my art, and still is.   I was fortunate to live the artist-dream: make art full-time for several years, and believe me, I did not take that blessing lightly.   It gave me the time and the freedom to explore and invent work that otherwise would never have existed.   Each morning I would head to the Napa Valley Coffee Roaster for my java fix , meet up with friends to talk about what was happening in the art scene around the valley, write and sketch.   

This was a sketch from that time period.



At that time was when I also started my Loose Works collection, whereas my paintings were not stretched, but rather the canvas was torn to size, gessoed, painted and then when displayed, hung from dressmaker pins, hanging loose.  There has always been a lot of positive feedback about this.  The idea came about because I was practicing art full-time, making a lot of work, and frankly did not have funds to frame each piece.  Also, I have a strong background in textiles and this concept was a merger born out of my love for textiles and love for painting.

Here is one of the Loose Works paintings using the Art DecO sketch as inspiration:




Iris  Loose Works Collection
Acrylic on Canvas
c. Viktorya 1999-2010

You can see a shadow on the left because the painting is hanging loose, as dressmakers pins hold the painting to the wall.  Additionally, I will re-use a favorite sketch or motif across various mediums.  

So then, I wanted to make a piece to honor Jenny Joseph's poem Warning, which goes:

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple 

With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me. 

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves 

And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter. 

I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells 

And run my stick along the public railings 

And make up for the sobriety of my youth. 

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain 

And pick flowers in other people's gardens 
And learn to spit.

Read the full poem

This is the Loose Works ensemble made for a fashion show, again using the Art DecO sketch, painting it on the back of a cocoon coat. 





The shirt is a free-form design, hand-sewn together using yarn and huge stitches; pants are a rendition of the Ginger Pants pattern.  The red chiffon on the pants legs created a nice movement when it was being modeled by my daughter Mandi at the Fashion Show called Designing Women, curated by Linda Schmidt in 2003.

 

It was with tongue-in-cheek that during the show I happened to mention that Loose Works can also be an active interpretation, in that for my clothing preference, Loose Works!

Well, that's a wrap - I hope you all have a Happy Friday!  
Studio time for me begins Saturday morning and will extend to 9 am Monday.  Cheers!

-Viktorya