Ninth Wave Designs

NWD Guest's Gallery: Jan Hodges

The NWD Guest's Gallery has some new artwork from featured artist Jan Hodges.  Jan is a professional artist and the director of the New England College Gallery in Henniker, NH.  Through my good influence Jan has become a fan of the classic Moleskine Sketchbook.  She has provided some of her artwork to be added to the Guest's Gallery, and has this to say about her creative work:

Ninth Wave Designs: What style of Moleskine notebook is your favorite? Do you like working in the large or the pocket size format?

Jan Hodges: I like the pocket ones.

NWD: What artist materials do you use when you create your images in your Moleskine notebook?

JH: I use just about everything except pencils, I hate pencils! I use enamel, prismacolor markers, enamel paint markers, ballpoint pen (my favorite drawing medium) nail polish…acrylic paint…whatever serves the creation of the moment. I mostly prefer things in pen style rather than paint tubes – more portable.

NWD: After you filled up your Moleskine sketchbook you then took apart the binding to remove images to frame and show them.  Can you explain what it is about working in the bound Moleskine sketchbook that you like over working on unbound sheets of paper?

JH: I use my Moleskine sketchbooks first as journals. I carry them around, write in them, then make drawings over the written pages.  I like the bound books for many reasons, first of which, they are highly portable and I like to make art wherever I am.  I actually prefer making art on the go to making art in the studio – less rarified, more “real.” Plus, I like the feeling of doing two things at once…such as creating art while in graduate school. All of the drawings in the online show were made while in class.

I also like the feeling of the bound books, which is difficult to explain. Unbound sheets of paper are unfriendly feeling. I don’t like creating on a lonely and empty white page.  There is a sense of intimacy and secrecy in the format of the bound books that I respond to. I like the idea of removing some..but not all of the pages. The book with the drawings that have not been removed becomes a work of art in itself.

NWD: My favorite image from this selection is the following one.  There is something iconic about it, like an image for a private shrine. Can you talk a little bit about the inspiration behind that piece?

JH: As for the inspiration part, that red one was about finding someone who feels like your mirror image, but then not having that person – so you are left with the outline of possibility and the reality of emptiness within the lines. 

Jan's artwork has been selected for inclusion in the 8th Annual Faces Juried Online International Art Exhibition at the Upstream People Gallery.  You can see her work and the rest of the exhibition online HERE.  Thanks very much to Jan Hodges for including her artwork in the NWD Guest's Gallery.

You can see these and other images in the NWD Guest's Gallery HERE.

NWD Guest's Gallery: Paula Catão

As a new feature on the Ninth Wave Designs blog I have added the NWD Guest’s Gallery.  From time to time I will invite artists who create artwork in their Moleskine notebooks or sketchbooks to submit a few images to include in the Guest’s Gallery.  Additionally I have put together a short interview to provide a little more in-depth look at the artist’s creative process, and specific materials that work well with the Moleskine pages.

The first artist to be featured is Paula Catão, better known to the Flickr community as Magic Fly Paula.  Paula is from Oporto, Portugal, and has a large collection of her original artwork as part of the Flickr online photo sharing community.  Her artwork is infused with a sense of mystery and the imaginary.  She takes the everyday and brings out a feeling for the possibilities that are just beyond reality. I hope you will take the time to tour her full set of images on Flickr, it is a unique pleasure to visit her fantastic creative world.   

Ninth Wave Designs:  What style of Moleskine notebook is your favorite? Do you like working in the large or the pocket size format?

Paula Catão:  I prefer the pocket size format and I use the sketchbook, it’s my favourite and it is better for water-colours.

NWD:  What artist materials do you use when you create your images in your Moleskine notebook?

PC:  In my Moleskine notebook I use these artist materials: Ecoline (Talens); Oil Pastels (Caran D'Ache); Metallic Markers; Golden/silver/white pens; Glitter glue, Drawing Ink; Water-colours (Van Gogh); different papers (for collage).

NWD:  Many of your images express fantastic and mysterious ideas; imaginary books, fantastic landscapes, stellar imagery.  What is the primary source of this inspiration?  How do you imagine all these parallel worlds?

PC:  There are many sources to this inspiration: Books I read, images I find in the Internet and in all sorts of books, old manuscripts and illuminures, films (sci-fi) and many other things. Since I was very young I like the stars, astronomy and I like to think about different and strange universes.

Some writers are very important to me, like Jorge Luis Borges, Paul Auster, Tonino Guerra and so many others.  Carl Sagan is one of them too...
I love to read, so I have to do something about books and libraries.  I'm an Art teacher (to kids with 12, 13 14 and 15 years old), but my dream is having a bookstore.
So, it’s all about books and what we can discovery when we read.

NWD:  My favorite image is from your “Star Diary” series, entitled: “Caderno das estrelas 21/ Star book serie nº2”.  I especially like the idea of your capturing the heavens inside the pages of your sketchbook.  Can you discuss a little bit the process you used to create this image?

Click on image for larger view.

PC:  I like very much of the pages you choose as your favourite image.  In my summer holidays I went to Spain, to Salamanca and I find there a Fresco by Fernando Gallego, painted in a Vault of the University. It is called "The Heavens of Salamanca".  It was a revelation directly from Heavens; when I arrived home I have to do something with the memorie of that Heaven. So I begin to think about "one Heaven" in all the cities, "one Heaven" in the books and, of course, "one Heaven" in my Star Diary.  I choose one of the images I brought and I made my interpretation of it, with my favourite media, ecoline and golden pens (and a collage too).

NWD:  What is your favorite image that you have created in your Moleskine sketchbook, and what is it that makes it your favorite?

PC:  You ask me what is my favourite page, well, I have several I like for one reason or an other. I like, in the first serie, the first one, because it was the first, and that one where the Angel of Santiago appears.

Click on image for larger view.

In this second serie, perhaps my favourite one is: number 20, serie nº2- Blue print. I like the colours, I like the composition and special, I like to think there’s a special architect with a blue print of the Universe. That blue print is in a precious book hidden in a misterious library. (And I like this concept also because my formation was in Architecture)

Click on image for larger view.

Thanks very much to Paula for the interview and images,  and for making her artwork available through the Flickr network .

You can see the NWD Guest's Gallery HERE.

See Magic Fly Paula's Flickr pages HERE.
For a special treat, put on some mood music and view the "Star Diary" set as a slideshow HERE.