Friday, January 6, 2012

Here's to a fruitful 2012!



Well, with the holidays winding down, I'm back at the computer scanning, scanning, scanning. These beautiful chromolithographs from the 1905 and 1909 U.S. Department of Agriculture yearbooks seemed a fitting start to the year. I plucked them from the attic for a new collage series I'm about to start.

Just as now, the antique and vintage yearbooks make fascinating reading, and are full of all kinds of research, charts, tables, etc. But - you guessed it - it's the pictures that interest me.

The USDA hired 21 artists from 1886 to 1942 to create images for its bulletins, yearbooks and other publications. Here's the cool thing: its National Agriculture Library has archived 7,584 of the paintings, lithographs and drawings. Wait. Here's the other cool thing: it sells high-quality reprints and - get this - part of sale proceeds go toward conservation of the collection. How cool is that? Find out more here.    


Stick to it. No, not New Year's resolutions ... I'm talking glue.



Ages ago, I promised a post about glue. I even took the photo above, showing some of myriad adhesives and sealers in my studio, then, promptly forgot about it. Well, my memory was jogged by a message this week from a friend pleading for help in creating ATCs. Her problem: getting them to stay flat once they were glued.

Wait, let me back up a minute to tell you about ATCs, which are Artist Trading Cards. Like most trading cards, they are small, generally 2.5" x 3.5." The difference is that each is an original work of art. I knew nothing about them before making collages and still have yet to make - or get - one. I ask other artists about them all the time and usually get a quizzical look and a shrug as a response. That belies the facts: ATCs are big business these days, with books showcasing them, supplies geared specifically toward making them, virtual archives, workshops, swap meets, etc. Just Google the phrase and you'll see what I mean.

Now back to adhesives. Wish I had an easy answer. Mine vary depending on the base (i.e.. watercolor paper, mat board, canvas), the papers being adhered, the weather, my mood.

Over time, I've become a fan of Yes! paste, which holds most papers flatter than matte medium, dries clear and is water soluble - making it a cinch to clean up overflow. There's been debate about its archival qualities but the formula was changed in recent years and it's acid-free. It can be hard to use, though - you need to learn how to spread it around; it took me a long time to discover that a little goes a long way - and it tears delicate papers.

That's when I turn to acrylic medium in varying weights - usually Golden; sometimes, Liquitex. I'm also a fan of PVA - ie., polyvinyl acetate - an archival adhesive used by bookbinders. Elmer's Glue is a PVA and I use it at times but it's not archival. So, I turn to Hollander's in Ann Arbor for PVA, which I usually can't find locally. (Note: they don't ship PVA when temps are below freezing). Over time, I discovered that mixing standard PVA with thick PVA provided the consistency I liked. The main drawback? It dries fast - as in FAST. Mixing methyl cellulose with it extend the drying time but I don't mess with that, I just work faster. As for how flat the final product is, well, again, that depends on the paper.

For a crash course in archival adhesives, head to the Talas web site. One alternative offered there: dry mounting sheets and tapes. They leave pieces flat, flat, flat but I've found that wrinkles pop up sometimes when sealing pieces.

Bottom-line: experiment. But you knew that was coming, didn't you?