Art AV Club: Joan Snyder

Art AV Club came about when I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole watching videos about Cy Twombly. Videos of artists talking about their work or art historians talking about artists’ work is a magical thing that we are so lucky to have access to FOR FREE on the internet. I particularly like to examine artists whose work moves me and how my work intersects with theirs. Join me for this week’s Art AV Club: Joan Snyder.

I went to the Fogg Museum of Art in July and saw this painting:

This is Summer Orange by Joan Snyder. And to tell you the impact it made on me, I walked by an absolutely huge Helen Frankenthaler to get to this piece. And as you well know, I’m more than a little obsessed with Frankenthaler.

This image has been rolling around in my mind a lot since then but it became super important this past week… Can you feel that cliffhanger energy??

Interviews with Joan

This is an absolute delight of a video posted just a few weeks ago in July! This is an overview of her, her process, and her career as an artist. She is hashtag goals in this.

This is video of a recent show of her work and her talking about it:

This artist talk is well worth watching but what I want to touch on is where she talks about her sketchbooks/art notes starting at 4:30 until about 7 minutes.

I’m fascinated with what she’s talking about in light of my push to be a more active note taker in the studio. She keeps a sketchbook and revisits it over and over again. Creating a blueprint for myself is what I’ve been trying to figure out and she articulates it so well here that the next time I’m trying to figure it out, I’m just going to push play on this video again.

Mixed Media Inspiration

One of the things that I enjoy and feel compelled to do is include bits of things in my work that are culturally marked as belonging in the sphere of women. Over the years for me that’s been dress patterns, crochet, sewing, and fabric. I’ve been using materials in non-traditional ways such as treating canvas, the basis of serious male painter’s work, as material to crochet with. Even collage is largely seen as women’s art.

Joan has been doing some of those same things longer than I’ve been alive. That’s both inspirational and aspirational and also deeply humbling. What a gift to have her as a working artist here at this moment in time. And we all get to witness it.

Serendipity

I’ve been prepping a piece that I finally got up on the wall this week. My initial idea was for it to be a small handheld scroll that would be hung partially rolled up with only a bit showing. You know, for the mystery of it all. I made the crocheted border which, as per usual, turned out 300% bigger than what I was planning. No problem, I had plenty of dyed canvas. My plan was to work the entire length of the fabric and then trim and/or roll up to the portion I wanted to be visible.

When Elaine saw it on our weekly coworking call she asked me if I had considered it being vertical instead of horizontal. So the crochet border could function as a notebook edge. I remembered the lines that captivated me in Summer Orange and I knew EXACTLY what to do.

Now the vertical column functions as both a scroll AND a dress. And since this piece is about Barbie, that works perfectly.

Seeing Joan’s work for the very first time in July came at just the right moment for me. I needed her in my life for multiple reasons and I am thankful I found her. Watching her videos this week has been an inspiration.

Go exploring on your own

I hope you enjoyed this Art AV Club. If you want to see more of Joan’s work, you can check out her website. The paintings are organized by year which is a fantastic way to look at her work! Also she’s been working on her Symphonies series for nearly her entire painting career. We should all be so lucky!! My new bucket list addition is to go to the National Museum of Women in the Arts to see Symphony. You can also see her work at the Thaddaeus Ropac galleries.

If you want to know more about this series, you can read Art AV Club and what it does for me. Or see any of the Art AV Club posts here.

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