A piece of cake? Hardly.

 

 

Sooooo, I've been working on a commission the past few weeks. Well, actually, longer than that. Much longer than that.

It grew out of a collage made for the Art of Food Exhibit in March. Someone wanted to know if they could buy a print of the piece - "Her Friends Felt That Roberta Was Overzealous About Protecting Her Recipes - which was sold.

The collage featured a vintage image of a knight wielding an oversized knife and fork, with various cakes and cookies. Vellum covered a large image of a cake that was the background. Well, I couldn't make a print because this was one of two collages from the show that I forget to scan. I offered to make a new one, and that's when the trouble began.

I was sure I knew where the knight was from. So, I hunted down and bought copies of the two vintage books I thought it was in. Wrong. Now, why didn't I write down where it was from as I usually do???

I scoured up more knights, including the amazing one above from an 1837 costume book. It was her favorite. There was paper leftover from the original collage, including the text at the bottom and another piece of the vellum with words on it.

So, I began. The client and I went back and forth on the images, with minor changes along the way. She visited the studio last weekend and the bottom right collage was her final choice.

Easy, right? Not a chance. The vellum didn't adhere as cleanly as on the original piece. She LOVES that cake, because the recipe she guards is a flourless chocolate cake. So, I spent a few hours yesterday trying to remove the vellum. Need I tell you that that didn't work?

Now, I am going to cut out the knight, text, cake, etc. and start again with a new background image. Luckily, I have more of the marbled endpaper - which came from a chocolate cookbook, and one last piece of that vellum. This time, I know how to adhere it.

But will she will like the new background. Stay tuned ...

 

Annie Got Her Guns: A 19th century morality tale. I think.

Annie Got Her Guns:
A 19th Century Tale of Self-Defense
mixed-media collage: antique engraving (Chatterbox, 1893) and
 illustration (Mother Goose, Volland Popular Edition, Donahue & Co., 1915);
vintage illustrations (Anatomy of the Human Body, Lea & Febiger, 1959;
Art Forms in Nature, Dover, 1974); recycled catalog and folder; ink, watercolor,
marker, acrylic paint, acrylic UV  sealer.  7.5" x 9.5" on acid-free mat board.
(SOLD)

Okay. Before you get your shorts in a bunch. I'm not pro-gun. I'm not a member of the NRA. But I am imbued with a wicked sense of irony. I came across this illustration in the Chatterbox, a popular 19th children's magazine. It accompanied a story titled "The Valor of a Girl." In short, it's 1820 and the eldest daughter is left alone in her family's home deep in the German forest while the rest of the family goes out.

A beggar knocks on the door and feeling sorry for him, she invites him in for a bowl of hot soup. She quickly realizes he's not who he seemed and throws the hot soup in his face. He flees. Then, another man knocks on the door, and when she refuses to open it he breaks it down. She grabs her father's rifle and shoots him. Shortly after that, yet another man appears, who she shoots and kills.

I couldn't believe I was reading this in a children's magazine. The collage is meant as a graphic commentary on the kinds of stories told to children - then and now. The story ends with the two surviving men in jail and the "kind-hearted" girl feeling sorry about the man she killed. It certainly demonstrates valor, but I'm on the fence about how the lesson "to be brave" is taught.

Look for it - along with the original text - in the upcoming exhibit "The Hunting Season" at the Thompson House's Shooting Gallery in Newport. It opens 7-11 p.m. Sat. Sept. 8.

    

A 5th Street Gallery welcome

The September issue of Express Cincinnati magazine is out and includes a lovely ad welcoming me to the 5th Street Gallery.  It's on page 9, in case you're looking in print or online.

The ad was designed by fellow gallery member Marcia Alscher, a painter and architect who dabbles in sculpture, photography and who knows what else. The entire group of artists at the gallery - a co-op, as I'm sure I've mentioned before - have been generous with their time, tips and compliments since I became a member last month. Yes. Hard to believe it's only been two months.

By the way, I'll be working in the gallery from 2-6 p.m. this Friday (8.31). Drop by and say "hi" if you are downtown. I love showing off everyone else's work, as well as my own.    

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 ...

Unabashed romanticism

There are times when I hate cutting a particular image. But there are few times when I'd like to save an entire book - this is one of those.

A stop at my favorite neighborhood used bookstore - Significant Books - turned up a copy of a luxurious 1888 edition of Keats poems. The book was no longer a book, it was a pile of papers that were badly foxed. I flipped through them quickly and decided that at $5 it was a steal, because the central images were salvageable.

I didn't really know what I had until it was whisked off to the studio. Snip. Snip. Snip. The worst parts of the large, velvety pages hit the floor. As I got deeper into it, I couldn't help but begin to read the poems and to look more closely at Low's classic Beaux-Arts illustrations.

Low began his artistic life in his teens as a sculptor and illustrator. When he was 20, he headed to Europe to study with Jean-Léon Gérôme and Carolus-Duran. He also spent summers with the Barbizon artists, whose focus was on nature and realism. 

After five years, Low returned to America, and began working as a muralist, illustrator, and decorative painter. He achieved some fame after illustrating an equally lavish edition of Keats' "Lamia" for Lippincott in 1885. That brought the publisher back to him three years later for "Odes."

I'm smitten and now on the lookout for good copies of each, to add to my library this time - not to my stash!