Trying something new pays off

In an effort to try new things this year, I entered Art Comes Alive, an annual international, juried exhibition hosted by Cincinnati's Art Design Consultants. The piece that was juried into the exhibit is one of the most recent Grand Tour collages: "Riding the Waves" (below).

An e-mail arrived about two weeks before the opening, letting me know I had won an award. But not which one. They give out dozens of awards from gallery contracts and exhibits to purchases and "bests" (as in Best Watercolor Artist, etc.). I tried to put it out of my mind, but couldn't help wonder what it might be.

The big reveal was Saturday night when The Carnegie's director, Katie Brass, took to the stage and announced I had won its award. It was more than a surprise since I had been talking to Katie for part of the evening, and she never gave a hint, not a single one, about it. The prize? I'll be one of the 2015 artists in The Carnegie's Community Supported Art program. It launches this summer with 11 artists, hand selected by Matt Distel, the Carnegie's gallery director, and an ACA juror.

Already thinking about what I'll create, even though it's a year away. Meantime, the ACA exhibition continues through July 11 at ADC. There are 150 pieces in it, and more than a few stunners.

Ahhh ... the struggle

I've been looking at one of the most recent Grand Tour collages, Bird's Eye View, above, almost every day for the past few months. It hung directly across the studio from my work tables. So, each time I looked up, I glimpsed it.

After a while, I began to not like it. The dark background didn't allow viewers to see the birds clearly enough. The birds were too close to one another. In short, it needed more air.

Toss it? No. Time to rework it. I popped it out of the frame, which will be put to use another time, and onto the work table. Happily, in order to give it the collage a 3D quality, each piece was not glued down completely. And PVA, which is water soluble, was used as glue on some sections. Even so, it took a few days of tearing, cutting and careful removal, to separate the birds and their passengers from the background. There was only one casualty: the baby's head, which I saved to reattach.

As I soon discovered, all that was the easy part. Below are images of it in progress, including two showing what it might look like if I created two pieces from it. More photos will follow, because it took an odd turn after the bottom one. I set it aside for a few weeks, and, so, it remains a work in progress ...

She's got a ticket to ride ...

Nice news: two of my recent collages were juried into the fourth annual The Golden Ticket exhibition at Clifton Cultural Arts Center. It features work by Cincinnati-area artists and includes a wide variety, and I do mean wide. I got a sneak peek at the art when dropping off my pieces last Saturday. The exhibit opens 6-9 p.m. Friday Sept. 5 - awards will be announced at 7 p.m. - and continues through Oct. 2.

© The Grand Tour: Wild things (2013)
mixed-media collage by Sara Pearce

© Shapeshifting: Edith threw caution,
 and perhaps her inheritance, to the wind (2013)
mixed-media collage by Sara Pearce

A good image: worth a thousand words

As you know, I try to scan every collage - even the small collage tags - into the archive. They are scanned at a super-high resolution - usually 800 dpi and above. Some say that's overkill, but the resulting prints are beautiful, and true to the originals. Well, as true as they can be, given that they're flat - not layered.

However, sometimes, a deadline looms, and there's not time to have pieces scanned. This wasn't a problem until recently, when I began making collages larger than the 9"x12" size my scanner accommodates.

Of course, I tell myself it will never happen again, then, gulp, it does. Usually, it takes a few days to get an image scanned. I hope to build that into my deadlines in the future.

You might ask, how about a photograph? Well, that works fine for some art, but in my experience, photographs don't capture the nuances of the antique engravings that are often part of my work.

Below are examples of three collages that were scanned recently, and the images of them that were posted before the scans. The collages were framed at this point, so they had to be removed from the frames. Happily, my framer put them back together at no additional charge, one benefit of establishing a strong, working relationship with her.

The Grand Tour: Bird's Eye view - scanned

In the photo, the entire image is washed out, especially the map.
It's missing small, last-minute changes, because I didn't have my camera
at the studio. I now keep it there, because even a so-so photo
is better than not having any image of a finished piece.

The Grand Tour: Riding the Waves - scanned

Note how much more detailed the clothing is in the scanned image. As in the previous
piece, the photo's minus work done after it was shot. The perspective's off, too,
which is kind of cool but doesn't reflect reality. And to think that I was so desperate
to post the image, that I did. Mea culpa.

The Grand Tour: Wild Things - scanned

  

You know what I am going to say, the difference between
the two is that obvious!

The ladies are touring again

I'm working on three The Grand Tour collages that take our intrepid travelers to the sky, sea and jungle. Definitely, not the requisite Grand Tour itinerary. It's been about six months since I did a piece in the series. As time goes by, the collages are getting larger, which presents a new set of challenges in terms of composition. I'm playing with scale on these, juxtaposing smaller and larger images to create the illusion of depth.

The jungle collage, now on the work table, has greenery composed of a vintage poster, an antique hand-colored botanical print, and a wallpaper sample with an antique map about the world's forests as the background. The "sky" is a feathery/leafy sheet of marbled paper printed in Australia that was a gift to me. I've been wed to that sky from the moment I pulled it out of the bin, but now that the collage has been photographed and I can view it on the computer, well, I'm not so sure it's the right sky.

I was already thinking about cropping the bottom of the collage to put more focus on the three travelers, and seeing the photo confirmed it. This means losing a lot of that beautiful map, along with the marbled paper. I was convinced that the marbled paper would fill the entire background, and was getting antsy, so I glued it to the mat board. Permanently. Gulp. I did the same with the map, gluing it over the marbled paper.

We'll see where this ends up. Meanwhile, I've learned the value of patience and will simply tack things down before making a final decision. That way, invaluable papers - such as that Guyot map - won't go to waste. Well, back to the studio ...

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.

Traveling clothes

Well, here are the three latest The Grand Tour collages that I've been writing about, all framed and ready to be shown at Saturday's 7th Annual Art Affaire show on the grounds of the Promont House Museum in Milford, Ohio.

They are my largest pieces yet. When having them framed, I picked the same molding in different shades and opted for "museum" glass, which cuts down on reflections and glare. The glass is pricey but worth it, because it lets viewers see all the details. They even look fantastic in this low-res photo.

I'm showing in the dining room, which I set up early this evening. Just a few little things to tend to before the show opens at 11 a.m.

I'll be there until closing, which is at 5 p.m. And in addition to the Grand Tour pieces - there are 3 more - I brought along collage tags, and flock of Out On a Limb collages and three shadowboxes.

Time is on their side

The Grand Tour: After Much Tinkering, Rosa, Viola, and Cora 
Traveled to a Place that H.G. Wells Had Yet To Imagine: The Future
mixed-media collage: antique hand-painted fashion plate (Peterson's, Feb. 1887);
vintage diagram (Switching Locomotives Operating Manual, General Motors)
and illustrations (Audel's Plumbers and Steam Fitters Guide #1 and #4, 1925;
Architectural Forum, July 1960); recycled book proof; marker, ink, watercolor
and acrylic sealant. 9.5" x 12" on acid free mat board. (2012)

This collage - the last of the new ones for Saturday's Art Affaire - began with the architectural illustration. When I spotted it, I knew the Grand Tour women would travel to the future - and so they have. But it took some mechanical ingenuity.

I've always been a woman with a tool box. One of my first purchases when I left home was an electric drill. After all, I already had my mother's Sunbeam mixer. So, tools have become a recurring theme in my collages and greeting cards. In the collages, I tend to pair oversized tools with 1950s-era women as a symbol of role reversal and empowerment. They function in much the same way here.

A few words about Mr. Wells: his novella, The Time Machine, was published in 1895. Since this fashion plate is dated 1887, my women are far ahead of him and have made time travel a reality. I like to think their trip inspired him.

Nellie and Abby's Amazing Shrunken Men!!!

The Grand Tour: Nellie and Abby's "Amazing Shrunken Men" 
 Packed 'em In at Opera Houses from London to St. Petersburg
$225Mixed-media collage: antique, hand-painted fashion plate (Peterson's magazine),
vintage illustrations (Architectural Forum, June 1960; Harter's Picture Archive, 1974),
watercolor, marker, ink, UV sealant. 8" x 11.5" on acid free mat board.
Framed with museum glass. (SOLD)

The Grand Tour continues with two fashionable Peterson's women - I've named them Nellie and Abby - taking their novelty act, Amazing Shrunken Men, on tour. In my mind, they sneak away from their chaperones to perform when everyone else is tucked away in bed for the night. And they're packing the house, as you can see.

The house, in this case, is from the June 1960 issue of Architectural Forum. Thanks to Carla Morales, the graphic designer for Cincinnati's Brazee Street Studios, I received stacks of vintage architecture magazines from her architect sister. While I wrote down the date of the issue, I forgot to note the building. I think it's Philly's Academy of Music, because the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts' wildly eclectic building is on the flip side.

This is another piece for next week's Art Affaire in Milford. Cannot wait to see how they look in the dining room - that's my designated space - of the Promont House.

Their bags are packed ...

Hard to believe it's been 6 months since I made a Grand Tour collage. Well, the ladies are touring again as I make new collages for Milford's 7th annual Art Affaire on Saturday Sept. 22. As intrepid as ever, the gang is traveling under the sea (above - early working version); performing on stage; trying their hands at fly fishing; and there may be some time traveling, too. You will be seeing more soon but, for now, it's off to the studio ...

9.13: Update: The almost-finished collage with significant changes. I'll add more shadowing, seal it 
and whisk it off to the framers ...

The Grand Tour: Submerged (SOLD)
mixed-media collage: antique, hand-painted fashion plate (Peterson's Magazine, Sept. 1880) and illustrations (Popular Educator, circa 1880; Art Forms in Nature, 1899); vintage illustrations (Handbook for Shell Collectors,1948; Harter's Picture Archive, 1974); recycled wrapping paper; acrylic, watercolor, dye, marker, ink. 14" x 11" on acid free mat board. 

Counting the days

The calendars are coming! I've been hard at work designing four different calendars for 2013. This time around, they'll be done before the first week of December. Way before.

The two above will be joined by an Out On a Limb calendar featuring new collages in that bird series, and a general Paper With a Past calendar with a mix of imagery.

Like the 2012 calendar, they will be a handy 5.5" x 8.5" and will be packaged in a clear box. But this time around, they'll be wire-bound and on heavier stock.

I plan to offer an advance order price of $12, after which the price will be $15. More as it happens ...

The Grand Tour: high-wire shenanigans

©The Grand Tour: Marie, Honore and Lily Were Ignored by Their Travelmates
But the Venetians Were Enthralled (2012)
mixed-media collage: antique illustrations (The Delineator, Dec. 1895, Sept. 1903, Oct. 1904)
and engineering engraving; vintage illustration (Picture Sourcebook, Dover, 1978);
recycled greeting card, book endpaper, circus exhibition poster and catalog;
 watercolor; ink. 11.5" x 8.5" on archival mat board.  Framed with conservation glass.
(Sold)

I knew from the outset that one of the new The Grand Tour collages would have at least one woman walking a high wire - just not who or where. Well, Venice's St. Mark's Square seemed a natural. After all, no Grand Tour could be called complete without a stop in Venice.

The original illustration included the sky, the plaza floor and more people. I cut those out, saved the tiny people to cut out and reinsert later, replaced the sky with an engineering engraving and the plaza with end papers fittingly decorated with lions - Venice's mascot.

The hoops - recycled from a pop-up, greeting card I received - came into play after scouring my stash for a sun or something astronomical to place in the sky. I liked that the blue hoops were decorated with stars and that the golden one's measurements complement the engineering engraving. The hoops also draw attention to the trio, who are close in size to the figures in the foreground who are so pointedly ignoring them.

The Grand Tour travels to new heights

© The Grand Tour: The Davenport Sisters Were Perfectly
Capable of Putting Themselves on A Pedestal (2012)
mixed-media collage: antique, hand-painted fashion plate (Godey's Lady's Book);
 vintage map (1957 U.S. Geological Survey);  recycled note card & book proof;
 ink, watercolor, colored pencil.  8.5" x 10.5" on archival mat board.
Framed with conservation glass. Price: $185.

I need to rush off but wanted to post this, because it's probably my favorite collage from the new ones in  the "The Grand Tour" series. And, yes, it will be in the show that opens Friday night (March 9) at 5th Street Gallery - actually, the show's already hung. So, if you happen to be in downtown Cincinnati, pop in. More later ...

Reshaping "Shape Shifting"

Shape Shifting: BEFORE

A few days ago, I wrote about reworking pieces that had begun to bore me. Well, here's another one. The original(top)  was on wrapped canvas with the collage extending onto the sides. I liked it ... that is until a friend gave me a pile of Italian papers that she'd been using as gift wrap. One remnant had colorful, hot air balloons that were far more fanciful than the antique engraving on the collage. A glance at the balloons, then, at the collage and - ta da! - a new balloon was flying into the picture.

I also decided to take it off the stretchers to crop it. I did that by holding different-sized mats over the image. It had more graphic power at a smaller size - the original was 12"x12" - so, I trimmed the left side. Ouch. It was painful to lose a section of the beautiful antique Guyot map and so many of the tiny corsets that I had scoured 19th century magazines for, but still worthwhile.

In the end, I decided to add the collage to The Grand Tour series, so it's been retitled to reflect that. Oh, one more thing: though the background colors appear different, they haven't changed. The top image is a photo; the bottom image is a scan - and it's that scan that's true to life.

© The Grand Tour: Shape Shifting (2012)
mixed-media collage: antique magazine ads, antique map,
watercolor & acrylic paint, colored pencil, ink.
 7.5" x 11.5" on canvas. Framed with conservation glass.
Price: $185. [SOLD] 

Touring again, but having more fun

© The Grand Tour: Airborne (2012)
mixed-media collage, recycled book cover,
 antique circus poster reprint, vintage illustration,
watercolor, India ink. 11.5" x 8.5" on archival mat board. Price: $185. (SOLD)

The Grand Tour is back but evolving. I'll continue using the fantastic, hand-painted 19th century fashion plates from Godey's Ladies Book and Peterson's Magazine, but am not limiting myself to them. Something clicked when I created pieces for last fall's Cincinnati Dreams Italy exhibition and the series was suddenly lighter and cheekier, with women who were less passive.

The pieces are also becoming larger, not enormous, but bigger than they've been. I'm excited and working like crazy on these, as well as other pieces for my March show - "Expecting to Fly" - at the 5th St. Gallery downtown (link in side rail). Well, it's off to the studio. There's lots of work to be done!

The Grand Tour 16: Maude and Henrietta DiscoverThat a Teapot Is a Discreet Decanter for Chianti

Here's the last of the new collages for the Cincinnati Dreams Italy exhibit, which opens 6-8 p.m. Thursday with a progressive potluck reception that will move visitors through the four exhibit sites - and will continue 11 a.m.-5 p.m. during the next three weekends (Oct. 8-9, 15-16, 22-23).

The women are courtesy of Godey's Lady's Book, which featured numerous black-and-white fashion plates in addition to the larger, hand-colored ones. The "rug" beneath their feet might look familiar. It is recycled holiday wrapping paper designed by architect Michael Graves based on drawings he made in Tuscany. It was folded and tucked inside a Christmas card that I received from his office back in my reporting days. I used it before in The Grand Tour: 4 as part of the fabric of a Godey's traveling cloak.

5.5" x 8.5" with ink & watercolor on archival mat board. {SOLD}

Cincinnati Dreams Italy

The Grand Tour 13: "The Group Halted In Germany
But Emily's Heart  Leapt Ahead to Venice."©
 Mixed-media collage on antique book cover. 

As mentioned in a post a few days ago, you can see how area artists view Italy next month in "Cincinnati Dreams Italy," a special exhibition downtown. It's the brainchild of Kathy Holwadel. She was asked by the Taft to plan a series of Italian-themed events to complement "George Inness In Italy," the museum's big fall exhibition.

Well, to say she got carried away is an understatement. The expansive local artists' exhibit - up to three dozen artists and counting - is spread out in four historic buildings near the Taft and is just one part of the line-up. There also are tastings, a bocce tournament and a communal dinner. The Taft has posted this page on its website with some of the details and there are even more on the School Amici website (that's the local Italian language school owned by Kathy's husband, Michele) and regular updates on the school's Facebook page.

I'll be showing in Park Place at Lytle at 400 Pike St. - right next door to the Taft - along with Kay Hurley, Oliver Debikey, Michael Wilson, Karen Heyl, Mark Patsfall, the Thunder-Sky group and Kevin Muente. As at each site, it's a great mix of mediums from painting and sculpture to glass and photography. Dates are Oct. 8-9, 15-16, 22-23. Admission is free and 30% of the proceeds from art sales will go to the Taft.

The Grand Tour 18: Mama Encouraged the Girls toContinue Sightseeing While She Put Up Her Feet

It's probably no surprise that since I collect all kinds of paper, some of it is from my travels. We've made a number of trips to Italy and while I find it hard to depart with my own mementoes, I did end up using a few in this piece: the lira coin, the ticket from the naval museum in Venice (I still have another one) and the oversized postcards of Rome that I found in a shop (they came from a marvelous book of sepia-toned postcards that unfolds to be about 5 feet long).  7.5" x 9.5" on archival mat board

The Grand Tour 17: Matilda's Decision To Remain in ItalyAnswered The Question That Had Hung In The Air For Weeks

This was one of those nice surprises. I had cut out the women from a Peterson's magazine fashion plate to use in another collage but decided on a different grouping. Then, while searching for an image, I found this golden-infused Italian scene and a new collage was born instantly. That doesn't happen often, but when it does, well, it's pure fun.

I was itching to use the beautiful olive branch, which came from a recycled publishers catalog cover, and had a few ideas about the text when I found this snippet in one of my "word" files. Yes, I'm organized to the hilt when it comes to filing paper and have to resist the urge to subdivide it all even more.

This might be one of my favorites in the series for the "Cincinnati Dreams Italy" exhibition, because it reminds me so much of light-infused autumn afternoons in Tuscany and of the silvery olive trees that lined the walk to one of the first places we stayed in the hills just outside Florence. 8" x 8" on archival mat board. (SOLD)

The Grand Tour resumes ... in Italy

I took a break from The Grand Tour series for a couple of months but jumped back into it head first during the past week with five new collages about Italy. They're for the exhibit, Cincinnati Dreams Italy, which will be held Oct. 8-9, 15-16 and 22-23 in historic buildings near the Taft Museum of Art.

The show's the brainchild of Kathy Holwadel, who has a penchant for thinking up cool ideas and it's just one of the events she's cooked up as an offshoot of the Taft exhibit "George Inness In Italy," which opens Oct. 7. There are dozens of Cincinnati artists involved. I'll post details - hours, etc. - as soon as I can; meantime, read more about it on La Piazza, Kathy's blog.

This is No. 15 in The Grand Tour series. I've started adding subtitles; this one - which I admit to changing five times in the last 48 hours - is "The Grand Tour 15: Upon Closer Examination, Elizabeth Realized That Her Guidebook Had Failed Miserably In Its Description of David." It's a hand-colored, antique Peterson's Magazine fashion plate combined with images from vintage guidebooks, maps and brochures. 5.5" x 8.5" on archival mat board with India ink. {SOLD}