Gratitude: a top 10

Instead of the normal top 10 moments of 2012, I thought I'd post Top 10 Thanks to ...

The Grand Tour: Submerged (sold)

... art buyers near and far for buying my art, sure, but also for buying any art.

... the warm and welcoming members of the 5th Street Gallery for not only inviting me to show at the gallery, but, also asking me to join the cooperative.

... the gallery and shop owners who took a risk and began carrying my greeting cards, or continued to: Sharon Butler (The BonBonerie), Emily Buddendeck (NVISION), Carolyn and Mike Deininger (MiCA 12/v), Lynn Kahle (The Framery) and Wendy Smith (Redtree).

... the Brazee Street Studios artists and staff who make going to my studio so much fun. I love my new space on the first floor.

... the Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center, for honoring me by offering limited-edition prints of collages from my Grand Tour series as a membership gift. And to its gallery director Bill Seitz for asking me to show in annual The Art of Food exhibition, and, for challenging me to think bigger as I head into 2013.


... the writers covering/reviewing the visual arts for Aeqai, Cincy, Cincinnati Magazine, CityBeat, The Enquirer and Express.

... Celene Hawkins for including my work in the Flora & Fauna exhibition at Bromwell's Gallery, a show that pushed me to create more shadowbox collages (sample, above). And the women of The Studio Collection for inviting me to be a guest artist at their 18th annual sale. Wow. It was huge.

... local framers who are artist-friendly: I take my work to Lynn Kahle of The Framery and Tim Leslie (above, working on the Victor Victorian series) but there are plenty of others around. These two have been super generous with advice, tips, etc. You know your framer's a gem when he or she talks you out of spending more money!

... my husband, Mark, for the gift of an archival inkjet printer (first prints from it, above), the countless hours spent reconditioning my letterpress and his undying support of my third act.

... all the people who generously recycled their old paper - from S&H stamps and antique books to vintage greeting cards and paper dolls - via Paper With a Past. I promise to use it wisely, well, and maybe not so wisely. LOL.

Last-minute shopping? Pop into the studio ...

One of my Santa collages reproduced in
the "SANTA 6-PACK" postcard set.

Just in case you're still browsing for gifts, I'll be in my studio at Brazee Street Studios

• 11 am - 5 pm Wednesday (12.19) and Friday (12.21)
• Noon - 6:45 pm today (Tuesday, 12.18)
• Noon - 7:45 pm Thursday (12.20).

On Saturday (12.22), look for me behind the counter at the 5th Street Gallery from 10 am - 2 pm. So, if you are downtown, pop in and say hi. And if you want to shop, too, well, that's up to you! 

Save the date! My first exhibit of 2013.

The Carnegie's Pulp Art exhibit has popped up in the blog a few times recently, so I thought I'd share the official postcard announcement. The exhibit will fill all six galleries with paper art, from large installations to more intimate work.  Here's a complete list of the artists with links to the web sites I could find. I think it'll give you some idea of what to expect ...

Kristine Donnelly

Mary Gaynier

Travis Graves

Jennifer Grote

Matt Kotlarczyk

Sara Pearce

Peg Rhein

Carl Schuman

Jonpaul Smith

Allison Svoboda

Roscoe Wilson 

Oh, tickets for opening will be available at the door, and can be ordered in advance by phone (859.957.1940) or online. Hope to see you there.

A holiday surprise in the studio ...

Finally got my "Stuff I can't bear to cut up" print bin together - just in time for this weekend's Open Studios (5-9 pm Friday 12.14 and 10 am-3 pm Saturday 12.15). It's kicking off with 11 original Fortune magazine covers from 1932-33. These are NOT reproductions, and they're in mint/near mint condition. 

They're matted in archival mats and ready to pop into a standard 16" x 20" frame. Great gift. I checked online and they're selling for $75 to $200 each. Mine are bargain priced at $55. 

Have to start de-stashing ... but I am keeping one for myself, along with the rest of each magazine. Yes, they were entire issues with some great art inside that I don't feel quite so bad about cutting apart. Well, I may mat some of the car ads - they are pretty fantastic - to sell.

Tag mania! Holiday style.

Just finishing a couple dozen holiday collage tags. This morning, I'll seal, trim and punch them, then, add hand-colored reinforcements and vintage seam binding for the ties. The images - all the original paper, as always - run the gamut, from the Victorian era through the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

I used vintage greeting cards, antique postcards, recycled grocery bags (Trader Joe's shoppers will recognize the woman on the bottom left from the store's holiday bag), vintage Christmas seals, antique and vintage sheet music, vintage sewing pattern illustrations, snowflakes punched from old greeting cards, antique endpaper, recycled wrapping paper (yes, I save all the bits and pieces leftover from wrapping).

They are glued onto recycled manila folders and coasters (the large round ones are the end of a lot of letterpress coasters I bought years ago to use as tags but didn't).

Northside's NVision - newly expanded - will get a batch on Thursday, the rest will be in the studio for my Friday and Saturday Holiday Open Studio.

Latest find: teeny-tiny photo album, circa 1860

I spotted this petite photo album - it measures 5" x 4" - in an antique store in Hillsborough, N.C. a few weeks ago. The cover was falling off. The pages were coming apart. Some photos were missing. Even so, there were hundreds of images in it. Hundreds of teeny-tiny tintypes. Many hand-tinted. A few rare ones of animals. And, rarer still, African-Americans.

Just had to have it, and at $45 it was a bargain. There is no identification on the images and no text anywhere in the album to give an idea of who these people are. I suspect it may have been a photographer's sample album. It's easy to tell from the clothing and hair that the photos were taken in the late 1850s/1860s, when tintypes were just becoming popular.

How will I use these? No clue ... yet.  

Garden of anatomical delights

Tender Cares. That's the name of the collage this detail is taken from. (Yeah, still have a larger scanner on my Wish List.) It's part of an untitled series in which I give genteel Victorian/Edwardian era illustrations of women a sharp twist. They're for the exhibit Pulp Art, which opens at The Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center on Jan. 11.

The original engraving was actually titled Tender Cares - and by the time I finished the piece it seemed like an apt - and wonderfully ironic - name. The image was plucked from The Royal Chatterbox (1881), a beautiful, oversized picture book for children spun off from Britain's Chatterbox magazine. It's been languishing in the attic, because I just couldn't take it apart. I'm, obviously, over that.

The cutting is more complex in these collages than anything I've attempted in the past. The anatomical illustrations are from a variety of antique books, including a few different editions of Gray's Anatomy. The background is another one of those made in 2010 at a Greater Cincinnati Calligraphy Guild workshop on creating background surfaces. Everything created then was stashed away in a box that I rediscovered while was working on the bomb series.
 
One more thing: These collages are larger than past ones. Not huge, mind you, but bigger. I expect them to be 18" x 22" when framed.

Hot off the letterpress ...

Ring, ring, a-ling. I fell in love with the pageboy/girl above from the moment I saw him/her in a nursery rhyme book that belonged to my late mother-in-law. I knew immediately that the illustration - unsigned, by the way - would make a wonderful holiday card. After scanning it, the colors were altered so the hat ribbon and feather became red; and the inside of the sleeves, pale green. I cleaned it up (look closely and you'll see that it's slightly out of register), resized it, printed it and sent it as a New Year's party invitation.

I couldn't get it out of my head. A year or so later, I revisited the image with the idea of paring it down to its essence and printing it on a letterpress. The result? See below. 

At the same time I was doing that, I scanned a half dozen antique and vintage card borders. The plan was to make business cards. By the time I finished printing them, though, I didn't want to use them as business cards. So, they sat in the attic, until a few weeks ago, when it hit me that they'd make terrific gift tags.

Look for both the cards and the tags - and more - at this weekend's annual Showcase of Arts at the Woman's Art Club of Cincinnati. I'll be there just one of two days: 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Saturday Dec. 1.  

Letterpress printed. Blank inside. Packaged with an envelope.
$4 each.
Signed, limited edition.

Letterpress printed. Tied with red, green or brown baker's twine.12 to a package (two of each design); $8.
Limited edition. 

Victor/Victorians are out of the closet

The Victor Victorian series I wrote about in September - has it really been that long? - has been at the framer for quite some time now. But not just any framer. Tim Leslie, above, and Chip Doyle have been working on selecting just-the-right frames from their extensive cache of antiques. Not an easy task. I visited a few times to look over the selections, then, left it in their capable hands.

Well, they got it done - and quite beautifully, too. I had a chance to view the finished pieces last night in a back room at HighStreet, where I was attaching labels to them. Tim quite generously put a bug in owner Leah Spurrier's ear about the collages - he thought they were a perfect fit for her shop, whose motto is "Fierce objects, design, and London style" - she liked them and will be hanging them any minute.

I'm not sure where in the expansive store they will be and how many of them she will be selling. So, stay tuned ...

A not-so-subtle reminder ...

Sign of the times

This is the sign that will be posted on my studio door as soon as I get off this computer. I haven't missed an Open Studios since moving to Brazee Street Studios. But, I guess it was inevitable. I'll be at the annual Indian Hill Church art show tonight (6-9 p.m.; $5 donation) and Saturday (10 a.m.-3 p.m.; free admission). 

Other artists showing include Carol Abbott, Jan Boone, Greg Storer, Kay Hurley, Susan Mahan, Bruce Neville, Pat Olding, Donna Talerico and, well, too many more to list.   

It's a wacky few weeks, so I'm making a list ...

I've been so busy in the studio that I've neglected to spread the word about upcoming sales, shows, etc. Yikes! So, here goes ... wait, I will not be at Friday's Open Studios at Brazee, you'll see why below BUT I will be open for December's - and will have extra hours next month, too ...

The Grand Tour: The Davenport Sisters
Were Perfectly Capable of Putting Themselves on a Pedestal $185
Mixed-media collage: antique, hand-painted fashion plate (Godey's Lady's Book);
vintage U.S. Geological Survey map (Mt. Evans Quadrangle, Colo., 1957)
and illustration (Harter's Picture Archive, Dover, 1978); recycled note card & book page proof;
watercolor; pearlescent watercolor; colored pencil; marker; ink.
8" x 11.5" on acid-free, mat board. Framed with conservation glass.

Lost Horizons (art about history): Just 16 pieces were selected from a pool of 626 for this survey of how artists are addressing history in their work. I submitted five collages form The Grand Tour series - which is all about rethinking history - and the one above was accepted! Opening: 6-9 p.m. Friday Nov. 9. Continues through Dec. 7. Manifest Gallery, 2727 Woodburn Ave., East Walnut Hills. More info.

Cherry Bomb
$225
Mixed-media collage: Victorian scraps, found watercolor painting,
 recycled wrapping paper and grocery store brochure,
 watercolor, marker, ink. 5.75"x11" on acid-free mat board.
 Framed with conservation glass. 

Indian Hill Church Fine Art Collector's Weekend: Dozens of Cincinnati area artists participate in this annual sale. This year, they've added a preview party on Thursday and a lecture about Rookwood Pottery on Saturday. I'll be showing a variety of collages from all my series, including the new "Paper, Scissors, Rock" and "Bomb" series. 7-9:30 p.m. Thursday (Young Collector's Preview Party), 6-9 p.m. Friday Nov. 9 ($5 donation) & 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat. Nov. 10 (free admission). 30% of sale proceeds benefit the Episcopal church's outreach programs. More info.

Ho! Ho! Ho!
Archival prints on cotton rag paper. Limited edition.
5"x5" matted to fit either a standard 8"x8" or 8"x10" frame.
$25 each. 

Multiplicity/Hang It Up: I've made new prints from my Ho! Ho! Ho! series of Santa collages for my studio home's annual holiday show. These are the first prints from the series. Opens 6-9 p.m. Friday Nov. 9 and continues through Jan. 3. 2013. gallery one one, Brazee Street Studios, 4426 Brazee Street, Oakley. More Info.

sssshhhh

Secret Artworks: Hundreds of artists create 5"x7" works for this annual fundraiser for Artworks. (I donated three collages.) Each piece sells for the same price - $75. The "secret" part is that you don't know whose work it is until it's sold. Preview the art in Weston Hotel Atrium Nov. 12-15 and right now online. Oh, and there's a twist this year: they're auctioning some of the new pig sculptures that lined the streets of Cincinnati during the summer.  5-9 p.m. Friday Nov. 16 at MCA (the old Contemporary Arts Center), 120 E. Fourth St., downtown. More info.

One of three new calendars. The others are
 Out On a Limb (bird collages from the series) and Paper With a Past (a mash up).
Signed, limited edition, packaged in a clear box.
$12 each

18th Annual Studio Collection Sale: Gather 12 women artists into the ballroom of a funky old lodge, add food, door prizes and music, and you have a sale that's more like a party. I've attended the show for the past six years or so and recommended it to others, so, I was thrilled to be asked to be a guest artist this year. Look for cards, collages and new goodies such as the calendars. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday Nov. 17, Harmony Lodge, 646 East Epworth Ave., Spring Grove Village (former Winton Place). More info.

Random acts of paper

Lately, I've been lucky to receive terrific paper donations from friends. The gifts have ranged from vintage greeting cards and stacks of savings stamp booklets to strips of vintage wall paper and dozens of vintage paper dolls.

The circa 1952 birthday boy on the tag above came from a box stuffed with treasures that Cincinnati Enquirer TV/radio/media reporter/critic John Kiesewetter had carried around in his trunk for months. The material was lovingly and selectively packed up from his late father's home. 

A zippered linen bag crammed with savings stamps came courtesy of Barbara Henshaw, who had seen my highly-organized stash in the studio, as well as the Mad Women collages in which savings stamps play a prominent role. I'm just starting new Mad Women pieces, so the stamps arrived at a perfect time.

Speaking of Mad Women, I just finished some new tags, above, that are Mad Womenesque and that include some of the vintage wallpaper that graphic designer, printer, Seed Bomb entrepreneur and blogger Maya Drozdz dropped off last week. They'll be turning up in some larger pieces, too.

Finally, there are the 1960s-era paper dolls that marketing wiz Mary Lynn Tangi gave to me a few months ago. They're now on the work table - those are three of the four, singing Lennon Sisters above - and will be starring in the new Mad Women collages. It was easy to tell by how carefully the dolls had been stored - with clothes, accessories, original books - that Mary Lynn cherished them. 

I find it fun giving new life to just about any paper, but there's an extra layer of satisfaction when the paper comes from people I know.

Sign o' the times

Just had to post an image of the spiffy sign that I had printed for last week's City Flea. It's 2 feet x 3 feet and is propped against the wall, because I couldn't get the easel I brought with me to stand up on the little bump out in my space.

The original design was postcard-sized and announced my move this spring to a bigger studio at Brazee Street Studios. With a bit of tweaking, the designed morphed into a general poster. This is one reason to save graphic files at a high-resolution ... you never know how they might be used!

Cards With a Past ® are downtown now

The newest spot to purchase greeting cards from my Cards With a Past® lines is 5th Street Gallery - my first downtown outlet. Last night, I loaded one arm of a card rack with 21 styles, and plan to switch them out as we go along. They are printed on thick card stock, and packaged with an envelope in an acid-free clear bag ($3.50 each).

The cards use copyright-free images from my archive. So, how can I copyright them? Good question.
It may not look like it, but a LOT of work is done on the images after they are scanned - at a high resolution - into the computer.

Generally, the originals are dense engravings and I get in between the lines to make sure they reproduce with clarity. Some are still works in progress as I go back in and clean them up further by removing part of the image. It can take weeks to get an image where I want it. But it's more than worth the time in the end result - and that end result is a new image with my stamp on it.

There's another twist to the cards. The back of each card includes an excerpt from the publication the image is from, along with bibliographic details on the original publication. Sometimes, there is an additional image, such as below on the back of the "you can handle it" card.

I'm still dreaming up more and having so much fun doing it!    

Costume drama, and mystery

Wish I could tell you where these spectacular women are from, but I haven't a clue. They're part of the humungous new stash and were in a pile of pages that had been a book about costumes. But, no title page. No engraver listed on the pages. No publisher either. If you have spotted these some place else, please, please, please let me know.

Each is hand-painted and a fairly sizable 9" x12" or so. My first thought was to have them floating. Now, I am thinking they'd be swell cake toppers. I have an exhibit coming up in February at Cincinnati's Bonbonerie bakery's cafe and had been thinking about a new collage take on cakes anyway - and calling the exhibit, wait for it, yes, Let Them Eat Cake ...  

The stash just got larger

What can I say?!? I succumbed when a friend told me that he was destashing his long-time print collection. Once the drawers of the flat files were opened, I was a goner. Not a good time to even think about sorting it all, but it MUST be done. There are Open Studios at my studio home - Brazee Street Studios - Friday night. Aieeeeee.

The art of adornment

Victor/Victorian
Geoffrey Firmly Believed in the Maxim that
the Ability to Accessorize
Is What Separates Us from the Animals
mixed-media collage: antique engravings (The Delineator, April 1894 & June 1898),
photo (J.H. Meyer Photographic Studio, 465 Vine St., Cincinnati) and endpaper,
recycled bead catalog, vintage button (Polly Pearce collection), watercolor, ink.

I offered a preview of the new Victor/Victorian series a week ago and am circling back to it now, because it's done. Well, almost. Going to the framer tomorrow.

Some of the  photo collages are inserted into antique album sleeves, while others -  like this one - are on antique endpapers. The endpaper collages may or may not be trimmed, depending on the frames selected. I'm checking out a local framer with a stock of antique frames. Cannot wait to see what they have on hand.

You'll note that Geoffrey is even more adorned via the addition of the colorful hat pin, some feathers and a rhinestone button from my late mother-in-law's button collection. Oh, and the has title changed, too. Could even change again ... you know how I am.    

Another new cast of characters, Italian-style

A few weeks ago I wrote about a food-related collage that I was struggling with. It was a commission loosely based on a piece created for an exhibit earlier this year. A print of the original would have been fine BUT I had forgotten to scan that collage into the computer. Well, the final piece - above - came out fine, even though I had to take it apart to get it there.

An armored knight was central to the earlier collage, as well as this one. The difference though is that the first one was a black-and-white engraving of a standing knight, while this one is a splendidly-outfitted and beautifully-colored knight and horse.

The image is from Costumi Dei Secoli, a spectacular book of hand-painted engravings published in Florence, Italy, in 1837. The two-volume set is falling apart and heavily foxed, but the prints are in remarkably fine condition once you get past the edges.

The art details costumes worn by people depicted in well-known paintings, sculptures and monuments of the time - and each is accompanied by a description. In Italian, of course. I've been scanning the images into my archive - there are close to one hundred 8.5" x 12" plates - and wanted to share a few that you're sure to see popping up in future collages ...