Anni Albers, “Tactile Sensibility”
in Selected Writings on Design:
“We will try to approach material with just this in mind: to discover its inherent surface quality or the one which we might be about to give to it directly by working it or indirectly by influencing it, for instance, through contrast with neighboring materials. We will look around us and pick up this bit of moss, this piece of bark or paper, these stems of flowers, or these shavings of wood or metal. We will group them, cut them, curl them, mis them, finally perhaps paste them, to fix a certain order we will make a smooth piece of paper appear fibrous by scratching its surface, perforating it, tearing it, twisting it: or we will try to achieve the appearance of fluffy wool by using feathery seeds. What we are doing can be absorbing as painting, for instance, and the result can be, like a painting, an active play of areas of different complexion.” [1965]
[via Eva Hesse Drawing, edited by Catherin De Zegher]
