“The residency is over. Sandy and I presented two collaboration pieces at Monday night’s gathering of the residents. Our thoughts are complementary, coming from different directions, to meet in a workable potential: Sandy’s world is in cadence and rhythm; mine is in color, icons and their implied meaning. The experiments that we have been working with show how these approaches can come together to suggest the textured, palpable physicality of the place we are in as well as the felt, intuitive, personal experience of being here.

Ecstatic times on the endless beach at low tide, the depth of the layers of the wetland woods outside my Nahcotta cottage’s window, the transcendental light of Willapa Bay, looking east, capture my imagination and suggest color and form. Shapes may be repeated; colors lead from one to another. Just a few starts are partially known—the rest follows. Each color suggests those that follow as each layer leads my palette and placement.

This Espy Foundation residency and the use of the Sanctuary Studios have made it possible for Sandy and me to start something unique and fresh. As we go on to collaborate from our own Nahcotta studios, our dual investigation will continue.”

Sandy Bradley and Joan Stuart Ross have officially finished their Espy residency but plan to continue working together on their “Cadence and Contemplation” project. Sandy recently shared some observations about themes that have shaped this work:

“Joan is very intensely focused on encaustics and color — how could we possibly meet in the middle? A backup musician at heart, I chose to make a setting for her encaustics that would present the melody of her lyrical work.

Sometimes visual art is produced to present the artist’s vision. Sometimes it is just the artifact of processes the artist happens to enjoy.

The sights in nature that give me the most joy are things like hundreds of birds flying/flashing/turning together (produced by each bird making decisions to try to stay entrained with the other birds, averaging out the distances and directions on all sides of himself), spartina grass washed up on shore in chaotic patterns that include rhythmic parallel placement determined by whim of wind and wave, anything that involves nature placing similar objects in rhythmic ways.

How many things need to be alike for unity, and how many options for differences need to be included to get that effect? In putting patterns on bowls I cut one width of tape (subject to human variation) of 2-5 lengths, and made one or two rules about how to put them on the bowl (like ‘no right angles’ or ‘no free ends’). Just these limits led to coherent designs. I collected a huge handful of buzzard feathers on the beach, then threw the whole handful into the air. The wind carried them along, all similar kites landing on a surface with little variation, and the pattern they formed on the beach displayed a similar extent of variation.

One series of tiles was 8″ squares with a 4″ window placed off center. They were all cut the same, outside edges relatively even. Then I placed spartina grass on it and pounded it in a little, which altered the inside edges of the smaller square and left the grass impression. The tiles have four 90 degree rotations, which places the small square in a different corner each time. The combination of the rotations randomly arranged presented the right amount of variability to suggest a natural randomness that we see as ‘natural.’ Joan’s smallest paintings were arranged behind the little windows, suggesting an array of impressions of natural themes here. I especially like how the piece makes valid impressions from a distance or close up.

The tiles of local dredge spoils with goat footprints is a glorious red color! Very rough, but of a sort. The last ones are firing right now. Another series of tiles reflects positive and negative impressions of the petrel. They’re in the kiln, too. I think we will be able to produce 3 or 4 more arrays in this series.”

Joan Stuart Ross:
“Yesterday, Sandy and Larry installed several wooden ledges on the studio wall to display the tiles–now we can mix and match, using them as a display aid. Sandy and I had a fruitful discussion about some of our evolving concepts, as the clay and encaustic mediums are finding new ways of working together. We discovered a working window–where the cut-out forms in the clay act as a frame for inset paintings that are revealed as a visual surprise.”

A last-minute change of plans–

Richard Campbell’s article in the Seattle P.I. about the Espy Foundation has been postponed. We look forward to seeing this exciting article very soon. Thank you for your interest–and to all those who have already looked in today’s paper for news of the Espy Foundation, double thanks!

Some great news from Espy President Polly Friedlander–

Look for an article about the Espy Foundation by Richard Campbell in the Seattle P.I. on Saturday, August 4. It will appear on the front page of the Arts & Entertainment section and should also be available on their website, www.seattlepi.nwsource.com/ae/

We’d love to hear what you think about the article. Please post your comments here or email us at info@espyfoundation.org.

Today marks the halfway point of Joan Stuart Ross and Sandy Bradley’s visual arts project (July 15-August 15). Here is the latest update from the studio:

Sandy Bradley
“I made 10 more of the off-center square tiles with grass impressions yesterday, and I will make a final few today. I have to work on the slab roller before the sun hits the back yard. We should have enough for two assemblies. We might want to glaze a set of those. I also make about 4 native clay tiles per day — limited by the forms I dry them in in this case. Those tiles crack into pieces, and I intend to fire the pieces for replacement in order.

We changed the electrical outlet at the studio yesterday and will schedule moving the kiln into place for firing as soon as we have a quorum for the lift, which is 3 people or more. Tomorrow I take the day off for my sister’s birthday — an important annual appreciation. I’ll bring another batch of drying tiles up today. Maybe we can actually bisque fire a few on Thursday…”

Joan Stuart Ross
“Some encaustic paint application on a few of the fired tiles might be interesting, in place of and/or in addition to glaze–the Greeks painted with encaustic on marble, wood and clay and it’s perfect for textural treatments.

I will begin work on some 4″ x 4″ encaustic-over-wood inserts for the clay tiles after this weekend. The rhythm of the embedded encaustic over wood pieces inside the clay surround should be a nice cadence.”

“I took the crumbly goat footprint tiles to Cyndy’s studio — trying to look as productive as Joan! The footprints might not work. Next: layered clay, cross sectioned cuts to mimic grass or seaweed or wind….. they also might not work, as in not hold together.

Next 8″ squares with 4″ holes in them, the holes off center. Then hammered spartina grass into the surface. Those might work.

Now, hurry up and DRY. I said Dry! Not warp! Just dry nice and flat!

Started preparing another batch of dredge spoils to try the goat footprints again. This time, I hold the goat and place his feet in the clay. None of this voluntary art business! Then, as a special treat, I’ll trim their hooves.”

Photo by JSRoss

Sandy Bradley
“It occurred to me that the depth of relief in the surfaces I make in the clay might want to be reflected in the wood squares as a level of contrast in the paint. I think it could be really unifying. It would also make lighting a huge issue in hanging the piece. I’m listening to my favorite show on KMUN: Shady Grove. It’s Old Time Music, and tonight they’re playing a lot of (blush) ‘me.’ I was really stunned to hear my guitar playing from 1975, and to appreciate how very strong it was, and how succinctly it related to the lead instruments. My playing was informative in a unifying way. Somewhere there’s a parallel between that bass line on my guitar and the depth of relief in the tile, vs. the degree of contrast in the 2-D elements.”

Joan Stuart Ross
“Yesterday I spent the day working on three panels with the imagery of the snowy plover, one of the themes for the series of images I plan to investigate and use in my work. My list of images includes: oysters, oyster shell stacks, marsh grasses, lichen and branches, boats and boat formations, berries and other flora…I’m combining oil paint, collage and encaustic, emphasizing texture and varying surface treatments. I think that they will play off Sandy’s clay and vice versa–positives and negatives/darks and lights will perhaps make areas that will add to the drama of the combined panels. Then we won’t need to worry about lighting; the surfaces will imply their own light and shadow.”

Photo by JSRoss

On July 20, Sandy Bradley describes the beginning of her Espy-sponsored project with Joan Stuart Ross:

“Great! I say to myself. This will be easy. Make the tiles, for starters. Er, no. Get the clay from Ilwaco — find the dredge spoils and take yer buckets. After some searching for the best stuff, I brought home about 15-20 gallons of clay chunks. Half of it I knocked into smaller chunks and crushed through a 1/2 inch blunger, then hydrated it. The other half I put in the cement mixer with water for an hour or so, then poured into tubs. All are in the greenhouse now, drying out.

Then I dug into the studio and found about 20 lbs of last year’s dredge spoils, which looks a lot closer to being workable. If the weather permits tomorrow, I’ll work them into tiles, or at least slabs for future use. I even found my sample chip from my test firing last year, and it shows that it shrinks by 1/8 upon bisque firing. So the wet tiles will need to be 9 and 1/8″ before drying and firing.

Funny that we both landed on 8″ squares as being the size of element we’d work on. It just seemed too easy….. Maybe it’s just like two little old ladies deciding that painting bunnies would be a good idea. Are we connected, or are we trite?
I’m enjoying whichever we are.”

Espy Visual Artist in Residence Joan Stuart Ross shares an update on her project with fellow resident Sandy Bradley:

“Sunday night we were welcomed by a memorable evening of conversation and a delicious dinner at Polly’s house. Yesterday Sandy, my pup Cody, and I checked out local imagery—we took photos of goats, the ocean, and various flora. I took a self-portrait of the two of us. The work of looking, and being “open” to seeing, is tiring–while one is trying to receive lots of information, one is also trying to focus on specific details—the two are related, and at the same time, opposite, endeavors.

Today, after meeting at noon, we decided that Sandy would go to the Port of Ilwaco to gather some clay and that she would begin to work on 48 8” x 8” ceramic tiles; I would begin painting studies for a group of 8” x 8” oil and encaustic panels—we will use several configurations of materials and repetitive imagery. We’ll work in our own media, and perhaps later, might add to/embellish each other’s panels. We’ll be in touch each day. I’ll mostly work at the Sanctuary studio; Sandy will work there when she is ready to do a bisque firing; we will collaborate on their placement and order when it is time to put them together into larger formats.

Some history: Over the years, both Sandy and I have experimented with varied applications of the materials we love—Sandy’s music, performance and ceramics, my paint and ink. Our paths have serendipitously crossed many times as we’ve volunteered for various causes. We were both long-time members of the Bumbershoot Festival Commission; Sandy has volunteered as an auctioneer for many non-profits, including the Folklife Festival and the Glass Eye Scholarship Fund; I donated my artwork to these same groups to be auctioned off by Sandy.

We have always had a mutual admiration of one another’s work, and are delighted to see how many times we overlap and concur with ideas about rhythm, placement and the conception of visual ideas. Sandy thinks in rhythms and repetition of sound/images; I’m interested in pattern, specific images as icons, and the use of color to indicate mood and emotional response to land/sky/water and their denizens. We both are interested in finding the “pattern within the pattern.” These ideas relate to a choice of vocabulary in our aural and visual language.

Importantly, Sandy and I have met and re-met here at Willapa Bay. When visiting in 2001, my husband, John and I discovered that Sandy had moved here to be with her husband, Larry. I called Sandy last summer when I was here for an Espy residency; and we got together and began to plan for this summer’s residency with ideas based on our visions, impressions and dreams of the luminous Bay. Polly Friedlander and Cyndy Hayward supported our intentions, and now we are starting our project!

Sandy and I hope that our experiments with indigenous form and its pattern and repetition will offer us opportunities to apply as a team for public art projects through the WA State Arts Commission. We spoke with Cyndy, who has generously donated the use of her Sanctuary’s artist’s studios to us, about a possible installation at Adelaide’s, her Ocean Park Bookstore and Espresso Café. We hope that other venues will present themselves as our project progresses.”

Written July 17, 2007
Photo by JSRoss