Fresh from my drawing table ... The Grand Tour: 4

I've been working on The Grand Tour series for the past few weeks in anticipation of my first show (see blurb at top right) and just wrapped up 10 new collages. The one here is bit different from the rest, because it incorporates a black & white 19th century engraving from Godey's Lady's Book while all but one other collage use hand-painted, color fashion plates from Peterson's Magazine as a jumping off point.

The maps are from 1872 and 1901 geography books. My favorite part is the background "fabric," which is Christmas wrapping paper designed by post-mod architect Michael Graves. It arrived as a folded sheet tucked inside a greeting card and is based on drawings he made in Tuscany. Perfect for The Grand Tour. 3.75" x 5.75" on archival mat board. {Sold}

Plate 37

I am obsessed with phrenology images and have a collection of dozens of engravings from antique magazines, dictionaries, anatomy texts and encyclopedias. I found the detailed head above in the Peoples Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge (Hunt & Eaton, 1881) and cleaned it up to make an image I could transfer for this quirky, pseudo-scientific piece.

It's part of the long-format series mentioned last week and which I hope to get back to soon. It's a mix of materials from a vintage postcard back and an almanac calendar to notations scrawled on a book binding to the engineering plate the collage gets its title from. The complex transfer turned out so well that I'm tempted to hang it in the studio to remind me they can work, which hasn't been my experience with the last few I have tried. 4.5" x 11.5" on canvas {SOLD)

Mad Women: Yvette Knew Exactly What She Wanted

Yvette is an alter ego for Mad Men's Don Draper. Minus the angst, that is. The patterns are Butterick and McCalls from the 1940s and '50s, and the jewels are - who else? - Tiffany's. The illustration was one of many scattered through a catalog from about five years ago and is on vellum, so there's some transparency as well as a wonderful softness to the lines. I figured I'd use them one way or another, and saved all the pages.

It's difficult to see onscreen, but those are Swarovski crystals on her hat and dress - as well as one as a tie pin for the guy in the suit. Trust me, they almost have that Tiffany-cut gleam. 5.25" x 9" on archival mat board. Framed with conservation glass. Price: $100. (SOLD)

Arnold Guyot: Putting it on the map

While searching the archive for images for a collage series called "The Grand Tour" I came across three books I had forgotten about. You'll read about two of them sometime later; the one that has me captivated now is "Physical Geography" by Arnold Guyot, published in 1872 by Charles Scribner's Sons as part of Guyot's Geographical Series. I'm unsure whether I knew the extent of the maps when I bought this - that seems unlikely given how wonderful they are. Six are double-pagers hinged in so that they can be removed intact.

For collages, I use materials in not-so-great shape. Even then, I feel guilty deconstructing, okay, ripping up, books (in my past: a masters degree in library science). But I took this apart, because damaged pages needed to be removed before they impacted others. It was hard labor; the volume was meant to stand up to classroom wear and tear. It was glued, stapled and had tapes running from the spine through the pages. I try to be careful, so I end up looking at each page closely, the upshot: it became obvious the maps were not headed for dissection. At least not by me. So, they were cleaned, scanned and tucked into archival sleeves.

I'm unsure what's next. Conservation and framing? A sale? Give away? Donation? But I do know that now that I've rediscovered them, I want to ogle them a bit longer. As Guyot wrote in the preface "the numerous maps constitute in themselves a work as laborious as it is indispensable. They have been prepared with great care, and are thought to embody the results obtained to the present day in this domain of scientific inquiry." They are colorful and handsome, especially the pulsating maps charting Temperature of the Air; the Course of the Annual Isothermal Lines (detail, below); Rain Over the Globe; and The Course of The Tidal Wave In the Three Great Oceans and the Great River Basins (at top).

I try to step back in time and imagine the thrill of looking over the maps, and the beautifully engraved illustrations of natural phenomena, exotic animals and foreign lands. It must've been something to have one of these in a classroom.

Amelia Was Determined To Not Fade Into the Wallpaper

Like the previous collage, this piece was a struggle. I set it aside, came back to it, set it aside - you get the idea. The cut-out had the original image of the woman hinged to the background, allowing her to be slightly lifted from the surface and for the pattern behind her to be revealed. I had done that with another piece and liked the effect, but it wasn't working for me here.

So, she was clipped off and then I went to town, adding the poem, vintage postage stamp, more layers of recycled tissue paper (yeah, saved from holiday gifts, etc.), and spattered and sponged ink. 6" x 6" on acid-free watercolor paper. {Sold}