Open studios tonight

Antique book press I use to flatten collages after gluing.

I hope you'll visit my studio tonight. Yes, tonight. We're kicking off monthly open studios at Brazee Street Studios in Oakley (7-9 p.m.). I'm on the second floor, along with Halo Miner, Diana Duncan Holmes, Joeliene Magoto, Casey Riordan Millard, Cathy Cebulski Sacco, Frank Satogata and Karen Trimble Shell. So please stop up, sip some wine, nibble some appetizers and see my newest pieces. All the details here, including a map and dates for the rest of 2011.

Magic Lantern

This started as another piece in the Bubbling Over series. The initial idea was to have butterflies in bubbles floating out from the circle. However, I dropped that idea once I found the butterfly-winged circus acrobats. Bubbling butterflies just seemed too tame for these Victorian pranksters from The Chatterbox magazine. Originally, the image inside the circle showed a man breaking through a sheet of paper. I cut him out and substituted the acrobats, allowing one wing to extend beyond the circle. I like the layered effect created by some images being below the main image and others pasted atop it.

The acrobats are from the same family guide to Cincinnati Art Museum's circus poster exhibit mentioned in Tuesday's post and the woman flying above them is from a tear-away-poster in the exhibit. The diving beauty is vintage stock art. 5.5" x 8.5" on acid-free watercolor paper.

False Sense of Security: 4

I finished this last fall but let it sit. Like the mountain goat in the series, this begged for something extra. That's when the problems began. When that something extra was added, I goofed. I used a vintage rubber stamp I hadn't tried since buying it two years ago; it left a faded image that I attempted to darken but smeared. In the hunt for something to cover it up, I found a box of vintage Dennison "Do Not Crush" mailing labels. I was worried that the red would draw too much attention, so I spattered ink over it to tone it down a bit.  5" x 5" on archival mat board. {SOLD}

Damn. Clowns.

I was well into this piece before visiting the circus poster exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Museum. But didn't have nearly enough clowns in my stash. Yeah, who knew? So, I was giddy with excitement when I spotted the family guide to the exhibition and its surfeit of fantastic clowns. The rest of the group are from recycled greetings cards, and the vintage books "The Jack of All Trades or New Ideas for American Boys" (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1914) and "ABC & 123" (Whittlesey House/McGraw-Hill, 1955).

The piece is related to an earlier one, Olivia Sat Mesmerized as Jonathan's Libido Bubbled Over and is part of the new "Bubbling Over" series in which I re-imagine seemingly innocent Victorian illustrations (this one came from The Chatterbox children's magazine) in new - and, sometimes, scary - ways. Those who hate clowns will get my drift. Making more bubble pieces came about, because as I went through images I had set aside recently I noticed quite a few with circles or ovals that I planned to fill. 5.5" x 8.5" on archival mat board with acrylic, ink and watercolor. {SOLD}

Take Me Away: 2

It's been so long since I posted Take Me Away:1 that it seemed high time to get the companion piece up here. Like the other collage, which features a girl, this one uses end papers from a damaged 1922 David McKay Co. edition of "The Adventures of Pinocchio" that belonged to my late mother-in-law. This one also incorporates a vintage map (on the book spines) and birds hand-punched from recycled greeting cards. But unlike the other piece, it includes vintage dictionary text (on the book spines) and an astronomical map behind the window panes.  4" x 4" on archival watercolor paper. {SOLD}