Collage

Using images from the Portland Art Museum guide . . . Love the interaction of the two nude figures.

Gallery Walk 2010: Guardino Gallery

It's Last Thursday on Alberta. A few Last Thursdays ago, I had an opening at Guardino Gallery - sharing space with amazing sculptor Julie Fiedler, and I never posted about it, so I thought I'd give you another little virtual tour.


Most of the show was encaustic work. This piece, "A Wish and a Prayer," was one I really struggled with, but I love the way the shape of the praying hands and the wishbone echo each other.


I think this piece was my favorite in the show . . . the piece has a lot of dimension, and the cat's cradle is actual string suspended over the moonlit sky . . . I want to do more in this series, but it's incredibly difficult to construct and work the multilevel surfaces; it takes a lot more time than I have right now!


Here's another piece that rocks the multilevel surfaces . . .and takes full advantage of the scroll saw my father-in-lawish gave me two Christmases ago. Here, the heart sort of turns into an octopus on one side of the bridge and a tree on the other . . . the bridge is Portland's St. Johns Bridge. I'm not totally satisfied with this one . . . I think the octopus is maybe a little much. I think I want to keep working on this one, maybe pull the octopus tentacles back a little bit and make them more vine or root-like.

A few more encaustics . . ."What is Left Behind" and "Recipe for the Moon." Each of them includes some collage elements . . .

This is a diptych . . . my first really successful one. I had just finished reading an article on bower birds, and somehow the drawing hand and the heart only really came together after I added the bower bird. It feels like the bird is making a bower in the heart . . . there's a seduction of some kind happening in the painting. At least for me. It's always interesting to me what other people see in the paintings.


Here, I'm combining encaustic on the panel and the panel is mounted on a reclaimed drawer decorated with acrylic, tea bags and resin. More hands. More tea bags.


And here's a look inside the gallery . . . me and Julie's stuff looked really great together! I had a few collages up, too, things I'd worked on while I was up at Whidbey Island this summer.



And this Last Thursday's opening at Guardino on Alberta with Katherine Dunn and Lisa Kaser looks AMAZING . . . and there's a Dia De Los Muertos opening at Fantasma on Alberta featuring the work of Alea Bone and Linda Rand . . . be sure to drop by and check them out!

Triptych

Not long ago, the International Encaustic Artists issued a challenge. A triptych challenge. So, I made a triptych using some sample boards I had started during classes, and some other encaustic bits and bobs. This piece is absolute proof that you can make art without a plan, and that you can make art with studio leftovers. I had a wonderful time stacking the little encaustic panels, collaging in map parts, and incorporating the window to get them all just so. It speaks to me of leaping, jumping, journeying.

I've still got a bit of work to do, but this is how I photographed it for submission to the juried IEA show. I had a very hard time photographing this . . . The colors are a little washed out, and there's shadows, but hey, I rose to the challenge!

Where these things lead . . .

I posted a while back about the classes I took at Art & Soul here in Portland this year, including one with Katie Kendrick. I did a bunch of little spontaneous paintings, and some of them have turned into other things . . .

LIke these two Bee ATC's for a swap on Swap-Bot. I also did a bunch of ATC's for Portland Open Studios Valentine's day cards, to be delivered to our friends at the press in February of 2010. And I forgot to scan them first.

And I just made a few collages, cutting pieces apart and recombining them. Here, I used a bit of a piece that had involved strategic use of a plastic doily dipped in liquid acrylic as a highlight (hence my search for my own plastic doilies. none at the dollar store, so after repeated trolling on-line, I am victorious! After several tries, I finally won an eBay auction for some this week!).


Here, more plastic doily goodness, and a tiny punched out bird that was in our class goody bag. Apparently, it's a Martha Stewart paper punch. I love the design, did an on-line search, and yes - won another eBay auction!

So - in answer to the implied question in the title, taking art classes leads to buying things on eBay.

People do the coolest things . . .

I recently facilitated a creativity retreat for a local organization. We talked a little bit about what creativity is, and then everyone started in on collages. Only a few of the people in the room had made a collage in the past ten years - but look at what they did!


People are so creative . . . the people in this organization are constantly solving problems, but many of them don't see what they do as creative. Hopefully, this gave them another way of thinking about what they do.











There were close to 30 people in the workshop, and this is only a fraction of what they did! They got together in groups after making their collages, and then built stories using the images like pictures in a storyboard.

It's Been Like a Really Long Monday . . .

Earlier this month, Bitter Betty talked on her blog about how January can be a lot like a really long Monday . . . and boy, this one's been a doozy! You know, one of those Mondays where you start a new job and wind blows shingles off your roof and you're getting ready for Bargain Hunting 101 and you decide to reorganize your office . . . It's been exhilarating, overwhelming, and exhausting . . . and there just hasn't been much time for blogging.

In the midst of all of this madness, it's been wonderful to be teaching the Artmaking as Playful Prayer class - I've got a great group of women in the class this winter, and it's really rejuvenating for me to spend time making with them. The first night, we did intuitive collages:

We each pulled a bunch of images from old National Geographic magazines, just ripping out the ones that appealed to us in some way, and then sorted them into four groups . . . just to see what kinds of patterns emerged in the images. I encouraged people to make four distinct collages, one collage from each grouping of images. My groupings ended up focusing mostly around color - though there were certainly other patterns that emerged.

This one is brown and blue, and I like the repetition of the striding people and the curving shapes. It's fascinating to me how my mind will work and work to make a story out of it . . . to make meaning, not just connections. Yet, if I let the story get in the way, the piece becomes forced and it loses that spontaneity and spark. There doesn't have to be a story for the artmaking to be meaningful . . . the real meaning in the work comes from being mindful, from being fully in the moment and open to the intuitive impulses.

And that is something that is all too easy to forget on a 31-day Monday spent chasing down a to-do list.

Re-Raveling: Judy Wise

I also had the chance to take classes at Art Unraveled . . . I've been so loving encaustic that I jumped at the chance to take an encaustic collage class with Judy Wise . . . I'm always up for learning some new techniques. Judy Wise combines acrylic painting with wax and collage in a really wonderful way . . . her style reminds me of Chagall's world if it were peopled with angels and goddesses instead of goats and fiddlers . . . and she blogged about her Art Unraveled
class here . . .

Here are the pieces I did: This first is acrylic over-painting on a vintage image, with wax and collage elements.


This second one is a clip art image of a heart that I turned into an octopus, combined with a clip art woman. Again, painted over and coated with wax and collage elements.


I can't say that I'm crazy about either one, but I learned a lot and got some great effects - and I have to admit I love the whole heart-as-octopus thing; I really want to try that again on a larger scale . . .

Foam Stamping: The Follow-Up

Here's a follow-up for Gretchin, who left a question on yesterday's Foam Stamping post.

I don't actually mix textures and colors on the individual foam pieces; each one is a separate print. I let them dry, trim them . . .



and then combine them into a single collage!


And I love the way the buttons came out . . . Yup, it's a series!

Foam Stamping

Making stamps with foam still has me delighted, even after the crazy TV appearance and doing a DEMO for the blog. Here's my latest experiment - a foam stamp made with a zipper impression, and one made with a mesh fabric . . . I stamped each one separately, then cut and combined the resulting images . . . I love this effect! I'm thinking about doing several with the zipper open different amounts, and with different things being revealed by the zipper.


I can see a whole series of these, combined with collage and other elements - maybe I could even make a button placket foam stamp, too, and play with it as an opening and closing element.

More than one way to get beads . . .

So, I never did make it to the Bead Expo this weekend - which is probably all for the best! I had a wonderful time at the SWAN event making collages and encouraging other people to make collages . . . it's so interesting to me how people will encourage their children to take the time for art, but don't feel like they have enough time to stop and make art . . . here's an adult collager at work - she found last year's PIX Patisserie calendar . . .


And here's one made by a woman who said she'd always wanted to a be textile designer:
Well, I gotta tell ya - I'd love to buy fabric with Hindu goddesses and William Blake quotes on it . . .

And here's one of mine done while staffing the table (how could I resist all those collage supplies laid out?!):



Ok, so I didn't make it to the Bead Expo. But, friends, the Bead Expo isn't the only way to get beads . . . I made this necklace almost entirely from beads that I collected in Nepal. (Ok, going to Nepal isn't the only way to get beads either, but it sure is fun!)


I got the large center turquoise bead when I was trekking in the Annapurnas above Jomosom. I only had "large" bills (each bill worth less than $20). Now, carrying cash was weird enough - I'm the kind of gal who uses a credit card to pay for everything, but most folks in remote Himalayan mountain villages don't take Visa, so, hey, I had cash - and the idea that my bills might be too large never even occurred to me! At a small teahouse where my guide Mana and I had stopped for a break, the owner didn't have enough change to break the bill I handed her to pay for our tea. The owner seemed a bit panicked, but my guide brokered a solution - perhaps I might like to look at some of the beads that the proprietress had, and take one as part of my change? Heck yeah! I selected that beautiful turquoise bead, and everyone was happy!

And here is my lovely guide Mana, pausing for a photo op in the little village of Marpha, Nepal.
(PS - and that photo actually isn't a composite - she's just backlit funny!)

In Development . . .

I'm working on some fiber collage pieces using image transfer techniques I learned during Wendy Huhn's Transferology class . . . and combining it with some heat moldable foam block printing on fabric . . . . I'm applying it all to unprimed canvas with Steam-a-Seam-2 fusible webbing (my favorite for fabric applique). Then, I'll be adding some stitching and other embellishment before eventually mounting the canvas - gently - on canvas stretcher bars. Above is a shot I took of Baggage: Nepal, 1 in process before I started the applique and stitching.

The photos are shots I took when I was traveling in Nepal . . . except for the suitcase. The suitcase, well, yes I took the pictures of that, too. Just not in Nepal. In fact, I bought it here in Portland at Poppy & Ivy just so that I could take pictures of it to use in my collage work. It just seemed like the perfect, iconic suitcase. The kind that, 50 years ago, might have graced the hands of an adventurous Airline Hostess. The kind that might be full of all kinds of Baggage. The kind that you might be forced to drag around with you long after it had outlived its usefulness. The kind that might have a Strange Musty Smell lingering in the satin lining.


Adventurous, check.
Baggage, check.
Musty Smell, check.

Bring on the cameras.

Hunting in Autumn

The Sweetie and I took a lovely walk through the Irvington neighborhood in Portland today. Ostensibly, it was so that I could get . . . er, hunt out shots of autumn leaves to add to my copyright-free collage materials file . . . but, truth be told, we both needed the exercise! And, despite forecasts of rain (Rain? in Portland? Never!) it was a clear, sunny day . . .




The Sweetie also helped me capture a variety of actual leaves, which I have corralled here in my scanner:


No leaves were harmed in the making of this post. All leaves will be released back into the wild.

Collage Materials - Delivered!

They're not really collage materials in the traditional sense of the word - they're vegetables. And they came to my house via Pioneer Organics. Yet, there they are - delivered - and I've been taking "glamour shots" of them to incorporate into my collage work. I love working with images of vegetables and fruits (kind of like skulls and birds, but different). This photo frenzy? It's all part of my transition to using only my own and public domain images in my mixed media art so that I can publish and reproduce my work. I really want to respect the work of other artists . . . and the food shots in Real Simple have been so tempting . . . their photographers have a genius for capturing the natural beauty of produce. Those images are now relegated to use only in my personal journals! So - I must learn to do my own! Next up: creating my own images of hands and lipsticks . . . then maybe I can finish the mandala I started in the first Artmaking as Playful Prayer Class this fall!