Red Sky Morning – Day 35
2016 ©Lisa Call
6 x 6 inches
fabric, thread, dye on stretched canvas

Titles Matter

A not insignificant* part of my creative effort during the 100 Day Project (which is now over – all 100 images are uploaded to my website – woohoo!) was selecting titles for each of the artworks.

(* this is Kiwi for “a lot” – I’m learning to speak in double negatives down here.)

In the past I’ve gone with a rather academic naming scheme:  Structures #1, Structures #2, Structures #3, … Structures #199, Structures #200.

Markings #1, #2, #3 … etc

Home #1, #2, #3 … etc

Needless to say it hasn’t taken a lot of time or creativity to come up with those titles.

When I started selling my artwork direct to the public, I found my titles to be a bit of a hindrance.

They add nothing to enhance the viewers experience with the artwork.  And I felt at times they might have detracted from the experience.  The titles helped to remove then from the work vs bring them in closer.

A few years ago I started picking better names for my work.  Names that are more interesting and connect both me and my viewers to the content and meaning behind the compositions.  Names  such as Falling in Love – Cape Palliser and Seeking North add something to the artwork.

With better titles, I noticed a better engagement with my art.

100 Titles

When I decided to do the 100 Days Project, it was tempting to fall back into my lazy habits and name them day 1, day 2, day 3.

But this was all about the challenge, so they all received proper titles.  And it was indeed a challenge!  It is not easy naming art and definitely not easy naming 100 pieces of art in just 100 days.

Some pieces were easy to name – it was just obvious looking at them what to call them.

Some were more of a challenge and required some googling. Researching color names.  Image searches. Following random links and thoughts.  And when all else failed I asked the Kiwi guy – he had more than a few good suggestions.

For these 100 Textile Paintings the names have no pattern to them.  Some are food.  Some are flowers.  Some are colors.  Some are just kinda weird.

In the future, it might be interesting (and an even bigger challenge) to have names that fit into a single category for a project like this.

And now some of the names for this project…

Places

Day 42 where I’ve seen many a concerts:

Red Rocks – Day 42

Day 46 was in mid-October and even though it was spring down here I can’t help but think of fall in Sept/October:

Pumpkin Patch – Day 46

And these colors and these lines – they just remind me of my home state of New Mexico.

Taos – Day 70

On my last trip to Australia we went on tree top walk and for some reason kiwi guys likes to call it a sky walk.

Sky Walk – Day 87

Food

One of the more common titles that popped up centered around food.  Maybe not surprising that everyone though my artwork matched the food at our opening:

Here are just a few of the food names.

Blueberry Pancakes – Day 14

Black Doris plums are a favorite flavor of ice cream here in New Zealand.

Black Doris – Day 19

Velvet Cupcake – Day 41

Seems most of the orange ones ended up being food names – do we eat a lot of orange food?  Hm.  Here are a few of the orange ones:

Butterscotch Sundae – Day 51

Western slope – as in western slope peaches from Colorado.  The best best peaches ever!

Western Slope – Day 54

It was hard not to name all the brown ones after something chocolate.

Hot Chocolate – Day 65

Petit Fours – Day 66

Manuka Honey – Day 74

Asparagus – Day 80

One of my childhood memories is getting limeades when we visited Santa Fe.  My dad loved the limes.

Limeade – Day 86

Flowers

These ones are all pretty obvious as you look through the listings.  This is one of my favorite titles – I was going to call it Tulips.  Kiwi guy changed it.  His suggestion was much better.

Tip Toe – Day 47

Songs Titles and Quotes from Books

Again some are pretty obvious like Red Red Wine.  And others are a bit more random.  Like this one…

This sentence came up in an audio book I was listening to in my studio while quilting this composition.  It seemed to just fit.  Plus who doesn’t want to possess a cat?

She Didn’t Even Possess a Cat – Day 64

I had been struggling to name this one until I played a Doors song for kiwi guy for some reason.

Faces Come Out of the Rain – Day 58

“You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet.”  ~Hal Borland

The Ideology of Violet – Day 20

Random

Some of my titles are just sort of random and maybe don’t make a lot of sense – but there is always a connection somewhere.

They are building a new road up here on the Kapiti Coast in New Zealand, part of it will be going through Transmission Gully.  The power lines will now have to share the space with some asphalt.  This was one of kiwi guys titles.  It worked (and I was drawing a blank.)

Transmission Gully – Day 68

This one is in reference to the frequency in which I see family groups wearing blue jeans and white shirts so they all match in their family photo.

Group Photo – Day 61

Greywacke is the dark colored sandstone that creates New Zealand’s black sand beaches.

Greywacke – Day 57

The kiwi guy likes to call popsicles “ice blocks” and feijo-lime is one of his favorite flavors.

Ice Blocks – Day 82

I have to admit this one eludes me.  I can’t remember why I named it this.  What do you think?

10 Feet Away – Day 32

Artwork for Sale

All of the remaining 100 day project textile paintings (27 sold as of this writing) are available for $100 NZD (about $70 in US dollars) each plus $20 shipping to all locations.

NZD = New Zealand Dollars – which is around $70-75 US Dollars.

Click on the images or you can see all of the textile paintings in the 100 day project here:  100 Days Project – Monochromatic Compositions