Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Another series is about to launch


For the past few weeks, I've been working on a series of collages that is quite a departure from the narratives. I haven't cooked up a name for it yet, even though I'm already on collage No. 7 and have at least three more in mind.

The photos above are blurry, but they''ll be scanned and posted soon. The idea was inspired by a clever collage by Georgia artist Robin Miller, spotted in Manifest Gallery's Magnitude 7.8 exhibit, which ended a few weeks ago.

Robin punched small circles of letters from a variety of books, then, pasted them in the shape of a circle onto a found book page and titled it "Letter Bomb." I just couldn't get it out of my mind and wanted to make something similar without copying him.

After a few weeks with the idea rolling around my head, I dove into it headlong. The first piece, "F Bomb," did involve letters, but took on a life of its own from there. I don't want to give everything away quite yet but suspect you can figure it out from that title and the images above.

One of the great surprises - as always, I suppose - is the evolution of each collage. Another surprise was that I - finally - am using background papers painted two years ago during a Greater Cincinnati Calligraphy Guild workshop taught by visiting artist Jacqueline Sullivan, as well as a watercolor painting recovered from a dumpster around the same time (hear that Diana Taylor?!).

More as it happens ...