By Bascove
New York, NY, USA
After 16 years as a successful textile designer in New York
City’s famed Midtown design district, Jane Braddock moved to Nashville, TN, to
become a full-time abstract painter. Her remarkable acuity with texture, color
and pattern were transformed into paint and canvas and the mixed media
assemblages of powerful encaustics. But one of Braddock’s great passions –
traveling the world, especially the countries of Asia – has proven to be the
most integral to her work. Her interpretation of Eastern philosophies became
the basis for the large-scale paintings; the Shakti- and Text Series which
became her signature works, now in both private and public collections
throughout the country.
Through the years of traveling she kept small notebooks,
collecting and arranging found scraps of fabrics, leaves, string, paper and
other materials that caught her eye during the day, becoming a diary of those
explorations. This fall a selection of these notebook pages will be seen in an
exhibition at the Nashville Public Library. After 30 years of painting
exhibitions Braddock will be exhibiting an entirely new body of work – her
collages – for the first time.
BASCOVE: When did you develop an interest in
the arts?
JANE BRADDOCK: As a child I was fascinated by the
sensate beauty of the material world. Tiny shells in tide pools – technicolor
gasoline floating in puddles – wind and salt air bumping along through the
woods on my bike –I don’t recall that there was anything in particular that I
did, but I always knew my path was visual. I remember selling my first piece of
art in 4th or 5th grade. It was crayon and India ink, a
shell – kind of expressionistic and bold drawing, with an emphasis on the
patterning of the surface. I never cared much about the accuracy of
representation. And later when I was in art school, I realized I didn’t really
respond much to Western art. I was always more attracted to ethnic or Asian
expressions. For instance, perspective, I don’t care about seducing a person
into a convincingly real space, I love the perspective of Japanese woodblocks –
especially ones in which the viewer floats above the space looking down and
basically through walls in an impossible but captivating way – more like a
voyeur. Or African art, which suggests realms of experience that reach deeply
into my imagination.
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| #1724 |
BASCOVE: Was there support from your family?
Were there museums, books, films that inspired you?
JANE BRADDOCK: Not particularly, I was one of those
kids who didn’t fit with the rest of the family. In fact, when I was 13, I was
given the choice to go away to school and I went for it. I had a great art
teacher for three years there who was a very gifted watercolor artist. He used
to make us do watercolors every so often before we could do something else.
Though I never stayed with the medium, I took away some painting strategies and
later, in my professional design career, worked in gouache. At the end of three
years I had won the art award and was headed to Syracuse B.F.A. program early
admission.
BASCOVE: What drew you into the world of
textiles. What were your influences? Did you know anyone who made a life in
that world?
JANE BRADDOCK: In those days (1964-68), Art school
was much more traditional and structured. The first couple of years we all took
many of the same classes: basic design, figure drawing, painting, ceramics,
color and light, aesthetics, art history, etc., then specialization began. My
parents encouraged me to pursue something that would have a practical
application, as in “job,” in other words, not painting. I had an excellent
textile design teacher and from the beginning I was attracted to repeat patters
and color. The patterns were easy for me to see and imagine. I was comfortable
with compressing and extending design elements to fit exactly into dimensions
necessary for various printing techniques. I liked the idea of home furnishing
more than fashion. In apparel, there is a scale limit, somewhat dictated by the
size of a body. Though patterns may be small in home furnishing, they may also
be very large. Also, in home furnishing, which includes wallpaper as well as
fabric, the designs may be seen whole and completely flat – not cut into
smaller pieces for dress construction. Design flaws cannot be hidden.
Wallpaper, like a large painting, has an environmental aspect, which is the
good news and the bad news. Also, in home furnishing the pattern is often
printed in multiple colorways. This means painting the design in different
color combinations and retaining the value relationships between the colors,
which are often essential to printing order. You hope with any design to cover
enough color bases that someone will love, and find useful, at least one
combination. I was every bit the colorist as the designer.
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liberated while living (from the Sanskrit
Jivamukti)
acrylic on canvas (2012)
|
BASCOVE: For several years you worked at Brunschwig
& Fils, one of New York City’s top fabric houses. How did that come about?
Did you enjoy the work?
JANE BRADDOCK: I only had two full-time
designer/colorist jobs before, at the age of 29, I cut loose to freelance full-time.
My last job was at Brunschwig & Fils in New York. Originally a very
expensive French house, during the war, [WWll] it was relocated to NY. Colonel
Brunschwig, in spite of his war wounds, was an elegant patrician Frenchman who
ran the warehouse which included our French imports. His American wife, Zelina,
ran the showroom where the art studio was located. The two spaces were about 15
blocks apart but they had a near incendiary relationship. We called her Zarina
Zelina – of course behind her back only. She was fierce. She would send you
home if she didn’t like your outfit. However during those years I had great
opportunities to work at several museums painting fresh or contemporary
versions of mostly 18th C designs. I sat alone at the baronial
dining table at the Carnegie mansion before it was later opened as Cooper
Hewitt Museum, I worked at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum
when Diana Vreeland was there, I later worked with Marella Agnelli on her first
textile collection, etc. Anyway, I met great people and handled extraordinary
original works of art which would not be permitted in today’s more curatorially
conscious world. I also worked some at the mills. Because we were a small,
expensive house, we did limited runs and therefore did mostly screen-printing.
My job there was color correcting and final approval for what would be the next
season’s line. I loved the process of production – the racket – the smells –
the long tables blossoming into pattern.
BASCOVE: How was the decision made to move to
Nashville? That’s a big change both of work and environment.
JANE BRADDOCK: Artist John Baeder, who is both my
ex-husband and a dear friend, and I met in New York City and New York City was
beginning to feel too long at the fair for us both. He had a friend in
Nashville who we came to visit for a weekend. Crazy as it was we just
spontaneously decided to move there. John was showing at OK Harris, the
renowned New York City gallery, so he really could paint anywhere – and by this
time, though I was still designing and coloring, I was tired of commercial
textiles and ambivalent about staying in the field. Over the next two-three years,
I transitioned into Japanese paste resist, creating one of a kind kimonos, and
from there into painting. My first paintings were inspired by a book John had
on 30’s Armstrong linoleum patterns. I would blow up the images, change them up
a bit, shoot them with new color, and paint them in long vertical strips on
canvas. I also painted looser more expressionistic pieces and assembled all
these in varying widths together onto stretcher bars. So my first canvases were
basically collages of vertical patterns – and the content was design and color –
the continuum throughout my work.
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| #1725 |
BASCOVE: Had you always loved traveling? At
what point did you start devoting more time to these journeys?
JANE BRADDOCK: Yes. My first big trip was in 1971.
My father had died the year before and my mother wanted to be away at the
actual anniversary of his death. She asked me if I wanted to accompany her to
East Africa (Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania). The trip to this day remains one of
the most spectacular of my life. Glorious huge landscapes, epic migrations
across the Serengeti and Cessnas over the Kenyan highlands flown by retired RAF
bad boy pilots. One of “our” planes had a large pin-up girl painted on it’s
nose. My mother and I traveled a bit more together too…England, India, Nepal,
France and Egypt…but from that first trip, I found a way to continue traveling
with or without help or companions. There are still many places on my bucket
list and there are some places I return to, such as India. I am going there
next February for the fourth time, but I will be stopping for several days in
Dubai on the way over, and then a couple of weeks in Sri Lanka, before
returning, this time, to southern India. Depending on finances, I am hoping to
be able to step up to a trip a year and be away a month each time. As I am
getting older, I am aware that a time will come when I may not be able to
withstand the rigors of travel – the air part alone is daunting – (and I can’t
afford business class!) – so I want to do the long and distant trips while I
can. Otherwise I am totally happy to stay home.
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| #1727 |
BASCOVE: You have said you were deeply
affected by the spiritual life you found in India, Nepal and Tibet. What did
this bring to you? How have you integrated these precepts of spirituality into
your work?
JANE BRADDOCK: I am not interested personally in
making work that is descriptive of outer reality. The work I do now comes from
an internal place and its success is how faithfully I can create the space
visually from which it comes. Over the years this has become more intuitive and
I enjoy surrendering to that process instead of trying to figure it out. Even
this resistance to the linear is more Eastern. In my trips to Asia in
particular, what has stayed with me is less the philosophical or ideological
underpinnings of religion, though I am interested and have read quite a bit
about them, but more about the feeling. Feeling not in the emotional sense, but
more like the textural quality of a space, almost like a certain zone…the dark glow of a temple with the
smell of burning yak butter, a blinding swirling muddy monsoon, candles at a
night market flashing on cheap colored beads, the scent of diesel and spices. I
like work that is meditative, that is quiet, that is a kind of refuge, or at
least that is the kind of work I want to make and the kind of work I want to
live with.
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| #1730 |
BASCOVE: Texture and pattern are reoccurring
elements in your various explorations. Another is typography. In each body of
work it is utilized in a different way. The block stencil lettering on the
large canvases is almost impersonal in feeling, diametrically opposed in to the
handwritten scripts or torn pages of the collages or encaustics.
JANE BRADDOCK: Letterforms can be so beautiful they
can steal the show. I use only one font in my paintings. I looked for something
that was direct, serviceable and without real distinction. When I found it, I
was surprised and delighted to discover it was called Phantom. The reason I
wanted the letters so plain was for them to step forward as yet another layer
of patterning and only secondarily be perceived as text.
The collages began as small visual notes of each day’s
experiences while traveling. I travel light so I had quite a few restrictions I
created for myself such as –
5" X 7” sketch book paper only, torn edge to left, scissors,
glue, found objects of the day, the only drawing allowed is a found drawing.
These were relatively quick and spontaneous as I was on the move. I love the
aesthetics of written language and I was lucky to be in places with exotic
scripts like Sanskrit, Hindi, Mandarin and Arabic, to name a few. I used the
printed matter mostly without reference to its meaning – in fact, often I
didn’t have a clue as to its meaning! I loved the idiosyncratic and exotic feel
of the letterforms themselves.
The first trip I made these on was to Tibet. When I returned
home I continued making these small collages but I allowed myself more freedom.
The two biggest expansions were – I could mix materials, not just from
different days, but from different locales – and I included sewing. The sewing
is more time consuming so I would not do it while traveling, but I love the
look of it and the process and using the thread as line – is almost drawing –
but not quite.
BASCOVE: The collages seem to be a very
personal response to what you have found on your travels, both immediate and
spontaneous. When you allowed me to view some of those pages last year I was
struck by the intimacy that can only come with viewing works of that size, as
you have said, like reading a book.
JANE BRADDOCK: Yes, scale is so important to
everything! My paintings are large because they are essentially color field
expressions and you need to be able to walk into them, to walk into their auric
field. The collages are like postcards or a picture book, something you look at. Even though both experiences are
solitary – the large painting is more physical and visceral – the collages are
more heady. They engage the brain more, triggering diverse associations. Also,
the paintings as fields are basically without composition, they could go on
forever. The collages are composed, very much designed within a small
periphery. One is expansive, the other more like a secret.
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| #538 - encaustic |
BASCOVE: You are one of the artists chosen to
collaborate with master bookbinder and book artist Britt Stadig for a September
exhibition at the Nashville Public Library. This is the first time you’ll be
exhibiting your collages, work that you previously felt was too personal to
show publicly. How did this come about? What helped you feel comfortable
presenting some of these works?
JANE BRADDOCK: Part of the reason I never showed
them publicly is that I never showed them much even privately. I considered
them a kind of diary and didn’t think people would be interested. However, when
his book project came up, though I was immediately attracted to doing something
kind of way out, by that I mean outside “normal” book parameters, I flashed on
the collages and thought how perfect they would be for this show. People who
know me know I love books; I have tons of them. I love to read, I love to look
at them, I love them as objects and I love their covers. Before I met you, I
used to buy books based on your covers. They were not only beautiful, but I
associated them with only wonderful
books. It was my visual vetting process!
So, somehow I wanted my project to remain in the traditional
book framework. Because some of the collages are dense with material and detail
and therefore intense, I knew I would need to simplify what was shown. Britt
and I talked about including some blank relief pages, but I felt so sad leaving
so many examples out that I decided instead to arrange pages by color palette
and alternate complex with simple imagery. The book is 20 pages long, but it
will be double-sided. At first I was going to sandwich the pages between thin
acrylic. This somewhat removed the viewer from the tactile experience, not that
you will be able to touch them, but there is a visual tactility that was
squashed and pushed the viewer one step back in terms of intimacy. Britt thought
of floating them instead in Mylar sleeves. She showed me a couple of ways we
might attach the sleeves together and though I liked more bold, obvious
rivet-like attachments, we settled on translucent hinges, which further
simplified the presentation and I agree will better showcase the work. We are
lucky to have Scott Thom, who is Head Preparator at The Frist Museum doing
exhibition for the show. Though my piece will have a box constructed for it by
Britt, I am hoping the piece will be partially accordioned; open on a shelf in
front of a mirror so the backside will be at least partially visible too.
BASCOVE: I understand that you gave Stadig a
length of cerulean cloth to use as the outside fabric of the fold-out book,
where had you found this material? What significance does it hold for you?
JANE BRADDOCK: Actually, a cobalt cotton sari with
quite bright metallic gold thread. Not a great textile, a common one, like the
work itself. I asked her to please use her own judgment on the “container,” but
that I would like it patched. Not messy, but pieced together as if there were
not enough, and what there was, was precious to someone.
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| Jane Braddock in her studio |
BASCOVE: It will certainly be a most precious
container! What projects will you be working on once you’ve completed this most
sublime collaboration?
JANE BRADDOCK: My new website. It is a steep
learning curve for me as I am cyber challenged. My web designer is trying to
create something that I will be able to work myself. He has had a hard time
explaining to me why I can’t get certain fonts lined up exactly in every
format. Why an electronic page is not a book.
Why not?
Otherwise, my painting. I returned from a trip to Southeast
Asia in February and am doing a text piece now that reads: the supreme
repository of the emerald buddha, which is one of the ancient names of
Bangkok. So far it is mauve and gold.
BASCOVE: What would you like to do that you
haven’t had the time or opportunity to explore?
JANE BRADDOCK: More works on paper. I stopped doing
them quite a few years ago because of the cost of framing, but now there are so
many other acceptable ways to show them. I love printing, I have quite a few
rubber blocks I have cut and a collection of Indian wood blocks that can’t be
used on stretched canvas and which I’d love to experiment more with. Also,
collage may be incorporated with these, in a completely different scale model.
Stay tuned.
________________________________________
The project at the Nashville Public Library that Jane spoke
about is fascinating to me where the work of a number of artists is being
transformed into book form with master book artist, Britt Stadig. I thought I
would pursue this a little more by asking Britt Stadig about the exhibition.
BRITT STADIG: As a fine binder and artist, I
wanted to do a project that would demonstrate “what else” book art could be. It
also gave me the opportunity to work with and collaborate with a diverse, crazy
talented, and amazing group of artists, the selfish part! There are three total
projects/exhibits and the one Jane is in is my last/the third.
BASCOVE: How did you decide to include Jane Braddock’s
work? What made you think this would be an intriguing collaboration?
BRITT STADIG: Jane attended my first exhibit in
2014. I knew who she was, had heard about her and seen her work of course, but
we had never met. Over the next couple of years, I attended some of Jane’s
openings and we continued to get to know one another. Her mastery of color and
compositional use of word and image seemed a perfect marriage for the project.
I never know when the invitation is extended to an artist where it will take
us; one of the many gifts the project offers.
I’m very excited to put her collages into the book form. The
visually rich and small-scale collages hint at travel, timelines and diary
keeping/recording an experience in a visual way. Their scale lends itself well
to unifying the works into an artist book and an obvious visual narrative
emerges. Our hope is that the individual pages provide the viewer with an
intimate experience while concurrently demonstrating a larger body of work
produced over time and how one collage relates to the next and how they come
together as a whole. Suspending them in the Mylar sleeves also gives one the
sense that the “memory” or experience has been arrested and archived in a
weightless space much like a thought.
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If you get a chance to visit
Nashville, be sure not to miss this extraordinary exhibition, a joy for
bibliophiles and art lovers alike.
20 Collaborations In Book Art III
September 8th – December 1st, 2018
Opening Reception September 8th,
2:00-5:00 pm
Nashville Public Library
615 Church St., Nashville, TN 37219
Jane Braddock’s work can be found in numerous
private and public collections across the United States including Vanderbilt
University, Tennessee State Museum, Nashville Convention Center, Nashville Music
City Center, CNA Insurance (Chicago, IL) and Women Without Borders (San Diego,
CA), among many others.
Britt Stadig
Links:
Jane Braddock Bascove
________________________________________
Bascove is an artist and author.
Her works of the bridges of New York City have been the subject of solo and
group shows for over thirty years and are in numerous public and private
collections.