Rae Atira-Soncea's memorial Blog Rae's Blog

March 28, 2010

Pre-Generation

Filed under: Brooms,Rae's Art — Tags: , , — math @ 11:27 am

From Sweeping Changes

willow, witchesbroom, soapstone, hair, grasses, fiber

PreGeneration was one of Rae’s pieces that was up for the Sweeping Changes show, and because of its configuration and size, and the lack of space to store things, was dismantled and now gone.  All that is left is the woven “spider web” from the branching on the top of the piece.

Rae wanted to use a piece of “witches-broom”, a condition appearing on a woody plant, often a tree, where the natural growth pattern is interrupted, and instead of a single branch, many are formed at a node.  The result looks like a broom or bird’s nest.  You can often see these in stands of willow growing near a stream, and that is where we found the stick for this one.  But instead of turning the branches down, and using them as the skirt, she kept it upright, and added a skirt that is more of a grass skirt, or roots, coming off the stick very low, and flowing out over the pedestal.

Within this skirt were small soapstone carvings of animals.  This piece represented an origin story, the generation of life.  It hearkens to the old explanation of “spontaneous generation” that was offered long ago as where certain creatures came from.  Like fire that will appear without a match or spark if fuel-soaked rags are left in an enclosed space, it was believed that trash and detritus would generate bugs and mice.

I have searched, but not found any of the small carvings that were in this piece, perhaps Rae gave them away as gifts, or left them as a physical libation in nature somewhere.

March 21, 2010

Sweep of the Milky Way

Filed under: Brooms,Rae's Art — Tags: , , , — math @ 12:04 pm

from Sweeping Changes

Cosmos Sequence, Wild Wood, dyed broomcorn.

Collection of Bankston-Thomas, Milwaukee

From Sweeping changes, and also appearing in Women, Domesticity, and Objects of Power, The sweep of the Milky Way is a subtle, beautiful interpretation of the night sky as a broom.  Rae had the stick, a found sapling with characteristic spiral caused by growing with a vine entwined around the trunk.  This wood cried out to be made into a broomstick, as so many similar sticks find their way into craft brooms at Art fairs and festivals.

She stripped the bark, smoothed the wood, and painted it flat black.  Then airbrushed and daubed pearlescent white paint for stars spiraling around the stem.  To make it glow, a clear coat of lacquer was applied.  The result looks like it could be floating in space, slowly turning with the eons and circuits around the galaxy.

The base is dark brown dyed broomcorn, tied with black cord in 5 bundles, making a star pattern.  The broom sits on a square of chamfered wood also painted black.  This is very much a Witches Broom.  Powerful and magical in appearance and energy.

March 10, 2010

Inspirational Simplicity

Filed under: Brooms,Rae's Art — Tags: , , — math @ 6:13 pm

Quilted Maple, Broomcorn

Available!  $600

From Sweeping Changes

This piece is probably the closest of any of Rae’s brooms to a “traditional” broom.  If it were not mounted on the iron tripod, you could easily sweep the floor with it.  One of the few pieces Rae turned on a lathe.  She didn’t really like doing lathe work, too much flying debris, noise and dust, I think.

The skirt was modeled after a craft broom she saw in a shop down south, with the broomcorn stalks still attached, and woven in a circular pattern, making a besom rather than the standard flat broom.  Robert Burns wrote a poem/song to the besom.

The wood is a piece of quilted maple, part of a larger piece that Rae bought from BVC hardwoods while Larry was still in the business.  The rough-sawn wood did not reveal the deep, lustrous, curly grain until it was polished with several ever-finer grades of sandpaper, and finally fine steel wool, and then a simple clear oil finish made it glow.  I could lose myself in the swirls and ribbons of its grain.  That stick takes the broom from its otherwise simple appearance to a transcendent glory.  Or so I’ve always thought.

Click for larger image

March 4, 2010

Serpentine Sheddings, Visceral Wisdom

Filed under: Brooms,Rae's Art — Tags: , , — math @ 7:01 pm

From Sweeping Changes.

Ironwood, pig gut

This process of putting Rae’s pieces in this blog, of presenting them with as much of their stories as I can, has been a healing one.  It also has brought me tears, frustration, and joy.  One strange thing is the deja vu.  I am certain I remember writing about this piece in detail.  But I cannot find anything, and now I must draw the conclusion that I either described it in a dream, or told the story at either her memorial/birthday party or some other gathering of folk.  Ah, well, here we go again.

Rae had a lot of fun with this piece, from the rather simple design to the very complicated implementation.  I found a snippet in Rae’s Master’s Thesis, which I quote below.  For Sweeping Changes, she wanted a snake, shedding it’s skin, the skin becoming the skirt of the broom.

From her MasterSweepings manuscript:  “The first step of this breathing out is the process of thinking.  Thinking isn’t limited to intellectualizing — for me it implies a whole brain involvement to convey something that is felt, seen, and thought about.  This is followed by finding, which is a free ranging and instinctual process — and an allowing and a trusting that what I need will be found.  An example of this can be seen in the broom Visceral Wisdom / Serpentine Sheddings, for which I needed a snake handle that was shedding its skin.  My process was not to think, “now I need a 6 foot stick” — it was more like: “now I need the snake” — and then I waited/sought the snake, and accepted it when the right piece of wood came.  Then I begin the act of making — not just constructing an object, but responding to the construction and materials while “thinking” is engaged.”

The stick was a found piece of ironwood, with bark beetle grooves in it.  The skirt, to emulate snakeskin (she had no desire to either buy or collect enough actual snake skins to do it) was hand-painted pig intestine.  Yes.  Pig gut. (“visceral” wisdom…)

You can get pig intestine from a butcher shop, usually used for stuffing your own sausage into.  It comes in about 60′ lengths or longer, in a brine to preserve it.

We lived at Eagle Heights when she was making this piece.  We went outside with the gut, and stuck a bicycle pump into one end, and pumped.  It inflated like an insane balloon-animal, getting longer and longer but not thicker.  She then tied off the ends, and we strung it up like a clothesline to dry.  It shrank and flattened when it dried.  Did not hold the air very long, but long enough to make it ribbon instead of string.

Rae cut this 3/4″ – 1.25″ ribbons into even lengths of 4 feet.  She painted them with one of her favorite paints, a “Pearlescent” set of pastels that fairly glowed.  The effect was a magical multi-colored semi-transparent ribbon that did look a lot like a colorful snakeskin.  The ribbons were folded in half, leaving the fold at the top, and a colored string used to attach them to the stick.  Originally crisp and fluffed out, moisture form the air and time have left them more limp now, but still just as colorful and inspiring.  The same colored paint was used to trace the grooves left by the bark beetles in a crazy, random meander around the stick.

March 1, 2010

Sensuous Successions

Filed under: Brooms,Rae's Art — Tags: , , , — math @ 8:52 pm

Tulipwood, flax

Available! $450

One of the 13 pieces in Sweeping Changes, and not included in any shows since, I think.

This simple broom was an exploration of shape and texture.  A very hard wood, it took a lot of carving to get the spiral worked into it.  It also took the light oil finish well.  Not a lot to say.  Within the design and its interaction with the viewer are possible associations and stories.  I know Rae, as a weaver and spinner, liked to work with flax.  The raw flax in this is quite different from linen.

What do you see?

Detail

February 27, 2010

Goddess of the Crossroads

Filed under: Rae's Art — Tags: , , — math @ 10:06 pm

Wood, Embroidery

vailable!  $500

She of a Thousand Names, an Ironing Board Exhibition Honoring the Goddess, curated by Lynn Slattery  Helmuth.  1997

Rae was asked to participate as one of 13 artists for this show, the format determined by Lynn Hellmuth, with the theme being honoring the Goddess in her many forms, the medium sculpture, the common factor that of the ironing board.  In 12 of the pieces, and actual wooden ironing board was used.

Rae’s piece took an antique pine ironing board, made a base for it with two crossed boards and a circle of pine around them, a Celtic Cross.  The ironing board fit into a curved slot carved into the base (curved because the board had warped over the years, and was no longer flat).  The base also had 4 wooden Celtic spiral emblems in lighter color, repeated also on the bosom of the piece.  This was Rae’s first experience using a jig saw, which also produced the Celtic knotwork making up the “belt” visible  in the picture, and the individual pieces making up the bosom, beginning with a large oval, with two rounded triagles cut out, then a double spiral, carved where solid to make the breasts, and finally two more of the emblematic disks, also called triskels.

The goddess’ face is an oval of wood, almost featureless but for the hint of eyes.

Detail

The belly of the piece is one of Rae’s signature embroideries, a beautiful Celtic knotwork with the colors flowing from orange to gold.

On the back of the piece is her hand-written Artist’s Statement:
———————

Lady of Choice:
The Goddesses of The Crossroads

Each of us makes “choices” daily — from what to eat for breakfast, to far more important decisions.

The legends of many Goddesses say they spin out our lives, some even weave the patterns of the world — but the fates do not “choose” for us.  We have the power of self determination, we have “the ability to respond” — to our lives, our world, our ethical beliefs, our hearts.

The Journey through this life is not just about our bodies being born, growing, aging and ending.  It is also about our minds, hearts and souls…

The double spiral path, the three gates, the interlacing and nexus points of the paths of our lives (which are never lived in isolation) and the crossroads are symbols of the Goddesses who support and protect our right to choose…

For that ability — I see my hours of “making” as an offering to them, an acknowledge of this gift — to be a self-responding/self-determining creature…


One of the very few pieces Rae actually signed.

Others in the show besides Rae and Lynn were Janet Shapero, David Aguirre, Truman Lowe, Leslee Nelson, Claudia DeLong Pope, Nana Schowalter, Kitty Slattery, Nancy Cramer Lettenstrom, Paulette Werger, Helen Klebesadel, Kicki Hankell Persson.

February 17, 2010

Cauldron – From the Age of Water, Continuity

Filed under: Cauldrons,Rae's Art — Tags: , , , — math @ 10:12 pm

Bronze, copper patina

From the Women, Domesticity and Objects of Power show.  This cauldron is one of 3 Rae did in Bronze, representing Water.  The Earth Cauldron I’ve already Presented, and the Fire is coming in a few weeks.  There was no Air, She ran out of time and access to the foundry before she designed one for Air.

The Water Cauldron came out exactly as she envisioned it, she was always very proud of it.  The designs are Celtic-inspired, with knot work around the rim, a mermaid holding the chain link for a handle loop (no handle has been made), and three naked goddesses for feet, their hair flowing up and merging with the cauldron.

The fantastic blue color was Rae’s choice of patina, created by brushing copper sulphate solution over the cauldron after all the spurs were cut, imperfections ground out, and the last of the plaster cleaned out of crevices.  She would patio the outside, , then the inside, let them dry to a flaky blue-white, then paint right over that again with the solution, 7 or 8 times, drying completely between.  The outer layers of the metal finally took the color, and now it is a part of the surface, and would take a lot of sanding to remove (as if!)

This Cauldron, like her Earth, was made over a beach-ball mold, with the knot work carefully measured and carved in a flat ribbon, and then melted to the outside edge.  Similarly, the feet and handles were carved in foundry wax and applied to their final positions before the burn-out and pour.

The Continuity Cauldron is heavy, though not as heavy as the Earth one, and it can actually hold water.  It IS water, in metallic form.  Happy Birthday, Rae!?

February 9, 2010

Corn Broom/Broom Corn

Filed under: Brooms,Rae's Art — Tags: , , — math @ 6:48 pm

Quilted maple, spalted elm, cane, reed

Available!  $550

Rae first presented this piece in a group show called Conundrums, if my records are right.  It was the last time she used a lathe.  The handle was not too bad, but the large piece of spalted elm for the bottom was just a little too scary turning at 500 rpm.

The handle started as a piece of quilted maple, the same that Inspirational Simplicity came from.  After turning and polishing it, she carved corn ears into the parts she left square.  Then used wood dyes to color in the kernels of the corn.

She turned the base, mortised a square hole to take the top, and burned designs in, filling with more dye.

The skirt is a set of handwoven baskets, dyed to look like multicolored corn.  Many people on first glance start by wondering where she got such corn ears, they look so realistic. 

remembering Rae

Filed under: Uncategorized — Leslee Nelson @ 6:23 pm

After Helen called –I poured my grief into an embroidery. See it http://labweb.education.wisc.edu/~lnelson/memory-cloths/atira.html
She was such an amazing person. I met her as my student & she became my teacher — How to live with integrity, creativity, humor and love.
“Atira” is also the image on my home page, www.LesleeNelson.com
She changed lives.

February 7, 2010

The Witch is Free

Filed under: Brooms,Rae's Art — Tags: , , , — math @ 7:52 pm

Sweeping Changes Series
Glass, Acrylic

The Witch is Free, the glass broom, was the culmination of many trials, many failures and restarts, to make a broom from Glass.  Rae loved the Glass studio, and was particularly drawn to sandcasting and slumping.  She wanted to make a glass broom, and tried many times unsuccessfully to do one in a sand mold.  She learned a lot about the technique in the process, and did make some other glass pieces in the mold, but what she tried to do for a broom just never worked out.  The process she was trying involved taking wet olivine sand and 2 boxes.  sand was put in one box, a cut off broom was pushed down most of the way into the sand, more sand and the other box placed over that, with waxed paper along the seam so that after tamping down the sand, the two boxes should have been able to separate, so the broom could be removed, leaving the sand forming a negative impression of the broom, and a hole to pour the molten class through.

Every attempt ended up with the sand collapsing, refusing to hold its form, possibly because of the size of the broom, or the fact that the individual broom straws would mingle with the sand, pulling it apart as the mold opened.  In any case, she gave up that attempt.

While in class, she learned of the “Witches Ball”  often found in glass factories, and also sometimes in breweries and other places.  The idea was that witches sometimes spoiled the work in the annealing kiln or vats, and that the shiny glass globe would capture her interest.  In the version Rae found the Witches Ball had a hole in the bottom that the witch’s spirit would fly into, and not be able to find its way back out of.

So the only time Rae actually did work with molten glass was to make the top of the broom you see here, tantalizingly shaped so that no witch could resist it.  Attached to a 1 1/4″ thick stem of class for the handle, all that remained was to attach the skirt.

The skirt, since it could not be a cast of a real broom, posed some problems.  She tried taking glass rods and heating and drawing them out.  Too tedious, and too regular.

Steve Feran demonstrated how to create glass tubes and rods, by grabbing the end of a ball of glass fresh out of the oven, and running out the door with it, getting as far as possible before the glass cooled, and began to break into sections.

For the Sweeping Changes show, Rae did a combination.  She had some irregular glass rods made in this way, some glass tubes and pipettes from a lab supply house.  She heated the ends and made them curl at the top, and curve like broomstraw would.  Held piece by piece in place with a dab of silicone caulk, and clear nylon cord wrapped around the bundle.  The whole thing was beautiful, and fragile.  Many rods broke in transport, and the whole skirt was eventually replaced with acrylic rods, which still sparkle, but do not shatter and cut.

The piece is now in the collection of Casey Heinzel.

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