![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/CupSaucer-768x1024.jpg?resize=375%2C500\")
Respite<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a92017 Elizabeth Fram \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Stitched resist dyed; Hand-stitched on silk<\/p><\/div>\n Getting out to walk on our trails with Quinn has provided a welcome reprieve\u00a0from the relative visual cacophony of pattern and color I’ve been immersed in while working on this latest cup and saucer piece.\u00a0I’ve long been an avid fan of the traditionally quiet Japanese aesthetic with its subtle contrasts and expanses of open space, which probably explains why\u00a0a snowy landscape represents\u00a0a such a welcome counter-balance, not just to working with pattern for hours at a time, but also, theoretically, to the hectic realities of life as we all know it.<\/p>\n A couple of years ago I wrote a post about February’s inherently restrained character<\/a>\u00a0and was gratified to hear from quite a few of my Vermont friends that they too welcome this season as a time for regrouping, of calm reflection, and as a period all the\u00a0richer for\u00a0its subdued identity. If you live with winter for a large chunk of each year, there’s an element of\u00a0self-preservation in\u00a0figuring out\u00a0what gifts you can glean from it.<\/p>\n But in thinking more about the appeal of winter’s sparseness, I did a bit of research on the idea of unadorned beauty. I\u00a0came across a fascinating lecture by haiku poet Madoka Mayuzumi<\/a> entitled “Japan’s Culture of Silence”<\/a>. It goes a long way toward explaining, especially in relation to haiku, the significance of an “aesthetic of reduction”. Haiku invites the reader into the poet’s world, relying as much on the blank spaces incurred through its brevity, as it does on the words which comprise each poem. Mayuzumi explains: “We tend to find the greatest beauty on (sic) what is left unsaid, in the rich possibilities of blank space”.<\/p>\n It’s a principle that can be applied to any of the arts.<\/p>\n Looking out my living room window, layers of fog not only mute any sense of depth, but also lend an openness to the landscape in much the same way as snow.<\/p><\/div>\n I’ve always loved winter, so a snow-covered landscape is a welcome seasonal perk…just because. But from an artistic and working viewpoint, there is a lesson in the snow:\u00a0the importance\u00a0of finding a balance\u00a0between maintaining a certain boldness (via composition, pattern,\u00a0and texture) while remembering\u00a0to\u00a0get my point across as simply as possible.<\/p>\n If this subject interests you, you might enjoy this 2 minute video<\/a> on the concept of “ma”, which discusses how this aesthetic of reduction is integrated within Japanese culture.<\/p>\n If you will be any where near Montpelier on Thursday, February 9, I would encourage you to attend mixed-media art knitter Eve Jacobs-Carnahan’s<\/a> presentation\u00a0Art as Action: Knitters Speaking Out<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0Inspired by the article What It Means To Be An Artist In The Time Of Trump<\/a>, Eve will discuss and show examples of projects undertaken by art knitters to raise awareness about social and environmental issues.<\/p>\n Art as Action: Knitters Speaking Out Happily, the snow that has fallen this week has blanketed our woods again. Getting out to walk on our trails with Quinn has provided a welcome reprieve\u00a0from the relative visual cacophony of pattern and color I’ve been immersed in while working on this latest cup and saucer piece.\u00a0I’ve long been an avid fan of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,21,26,30],"tags":[437,438,434,436,433,32,435],"class_list":["post-2645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-color","category-discussion","category-environment","category-winter","tag-ma","tag-eve-jacobs-carnahan","tag-haiku","tag-less-is-more","tag-madoka-mayuzumi","tag-snow","tag-winter"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5kO5z-GF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2645"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2672,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2645\/revisions\/2672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SnowCairn-1024x768.jpg?resize=500%2C375\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/SnowStreamMelt-1-1024x1024.jpg?resize=500%2C500\")
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\u2756<\/span><\/h2>\n
On a Different\u00a0Note… \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n
\n<\/strong><\/em>A presentation by Eve Jacobs-Carnahan
\nThursday February 9, 2017 6:30 – 8 pm,
\nCenter for Arts and Learning, 2nd floor
\n46 Barre St. \u00a0Montpelier, VT \u00a005602<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"