Tag mania

I spent much of last week working on the Fit To Be Tied® line. Each is an original collage and were intended to be gift tags, but since people keep asking if they are book marks I changed the sticker on the package to read: "Gift tag? Bookmark? Greeting card? Framed art? You decide." 

While working on them, I ended up all over the place in terms of theme. That became a problem as I started pulling out papers to fit each new subject. Result: a mess that reached a point where I couldn't find pieces of paper I'd just held. So, I've decided to work on one theme at a time. Today: food.

I'm building up inventory so that I can begin shopping the tags to area retail outlets.

Summer 2

It's obvious looking at this that it was created while I was working on Summer 1. They have the same color scheme and share other elements: the pen nibs (gel transfers), yellow flowers (both Victorian trade cards) and light color washes. I enjoyed working on both; for once, I left enough time to move pieces around, and add and subtract elements. Here, the latter included roughing the edges with ink for a worn appearance.

This is on the boxy stretched canvases I'm experimenting with. The papers wrap around the edges to cover them, then, onto the back. They're sealed with an acrylic sealer and a UV protection spray, and can hang without a frame.

It's one of the collages created for this weekend's Botanica exhibit at The Green Corner in Kennedy Heights. If you have a chance, stop by. Hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. today, noon-4 p.m. Sunday. 6524 Montgomery Road, one block south of Kennedy Heights Arts Center.

Summer: 1

This is another one of the narrow-form collages I've been playing around with for the past 10 months or so - and it's also one of the new collages created for this weekend's Botanica show at The Green Corner. In it, I finally got to use another section from Lillian Mary Shackett's 1918 general science notebook. I mentioned the notebook - a flea market find - in May when I incorporated a page from it into Autumn: 2.

I'd love to know more about Lillian but geographical references are not to be found in the notebook. The first few pages were nibbled by mice and text is missing. In any case, I'm pleased to give her notebook new life and a wider audience. Speaking of wide audiences: the book spine is from an early edition of "A Garland for Girls" by the wildly-popular children's author Louisa May Alcott. It belonged to my late mother-in-law but was water damaged beyond repair, so I salvaged the spine. 5" x 10" on archival mat board.

The Incredible Lightness of Being

Welcome summer! Given that it's the longest day of the year - for those of us in this hemisphere, at least - I thought I'd post this vivid, sun-themed collage. The piece was done as a commission for a friend, who is giving it as a birthday gift to a friend of hers with breast cancer who has chosen the sun as her healing image.

The images are from a vintage atlas, catalog covers and book proofs. The girl was extracted from an early painting by Picasso - "Child Holding a Dove." It's a well-known image that I thought would be copyrighted, but discovered isn't. It's in the public domain, because it was created in 1901. That's well before the 1923 cut-off date, after which copyright gets tricky and requires investigation to be on the safe side.

The words encircling the girl are from the first stanza of Emily Dickinson's oft-quoted poem "Hope," which begins with the line "Hope is the thing with feathers ..." 5" x 8" on archival mat board with pencil and ink {SOLD}

Shape shifting

A few months ago, I posted a photo of canvases that I had covered with papers as first layers for future collages. One of them became April and another one - papered with a fantastic map by Guyot - now is this escapist collage. I've been itching to make this piece for a while. I spotted the engraving of the balloon in an issue of Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly last summer and added it to my "collage ideas" bin. I knew I'd use it to aid Victorian women trying to outrun the strictures of the time.

The idea of corsets as ballast came next and I began clipping them from advertisements in 19th century women's magazines - looking for a variety of sizes and brands from Dr. Warner's Electric Corsets (yes, they were wired) to Armorside and Glove-Fitting. I'm not sure if the women atop the balloon are approving or disapproving - I'm leaving that up to viewers to figure out.

12" x 12" on stretched canvas, with acrylic and watercolor paints, colored pencil and ink. Ready to hang. $75 + $10 shipping & handling

Mind Games IV

This was fun, because I was able - finally - to use one of the color phrenology heads I photocopied a year ago from an image in my archive. I created the copies - the only time I use copies in my work - specifically to use as image transfers. The brain sections were left empty so text or images could be added as the urge hit. Looking at it now, well, I'd like to embellish it ... but the piece is hanging at Redtree Art Gallery for tonight's opening so, that's that.

Beneath the head is a tarot card from one of the dozens of decks* I own; this one happens to riff on Edvard Munch's famed "The Scream" painting. Serving as the cap: a puzzle from The Chatterbox children's magazine, circa 1900s.  4" x 8" on book board, with watercolor and ink.

* when I find the deck, I will add more info about it

Mind Games VI

Another one of the series. I thought this might be a good time to explain what "mixed-media" means. It's not only using different types of paper or elements in a piece but also using different media. This is a good example, because it includes:
- watercolors (on hands & eye).
- ink and pencil (along edge of main cut-out to tone down white edge and help it blend into the background,  and ink that continues the spiral over the eye).
- acrylic gel image transfer (top hand, which was transferred onto the piece by applying acrylic gel to the background and to the inked-side of a photocopy, then burnishing the lines and hoping like heck that the ink sticks to the paper - always a suspenseful moment).

4" x 8" on cloth-covered book board

Mind Games: a new series accepted for Redtree exhibit

I just finished a series of six collages, Mind Games, that began life as a book. Let's back up. I attended a book workshop last summer and came prepared with scads of brain and phrenology images. My intention was to create a book titled Mind Games. I am obsessed with phrenology and hope to create more works around the science - pseudo-science? - of categorizing the brain.

Well, as generally happens when I take a workshop, everyone else finished while I was still mulling over designs. I did manage to cover the book boards, paste some medical text down as backgrounds, and clip images to the pages I intended to use them on.

After that, the book languished. Well, I pulled it out a few weeks ago and decided to turn it into a series of freestanding collages - each 4" x 8" - for entry in the exhibit Mind & Matter at Redtree Art Gallery here in Cincinnati. I learned today that all six were accepted for the show, which opens Friday (June 10). Woo hoo.

After En pointe: Off pointe, of course!

Oops! Forgot to post the sequel to "En pointe" yesterday. So, here it is. I didn't mention this in the pervious post but the tools are from a number of antique/vintage sources, most notably "Educational Woodworking For Home and School" (MacMillan, 1916). It is quite a treasure trove and I'm mining it to the last page. The sheet music is another section  of "Air de Ballet," the piece used in the first collage. 5" x 5" on archival mat board.   {SOLD}

Note: If I can find similar images of dancers, I'd like to turn this into a series for later reprint as greeting cards or prints after the collages are sold. I could bend my rules and copy the women - yes, they're scanned into my digital archive - change the colors of their dresses, etc. and put them in other situations. I'm thinking that the series could turn into a fundraiser for Cincinnati Ballet. Stay tuned.