Bumper crop

Well, the other thing I was messin' with while I was home with the flu was new variations on the "I heart" cards in the "Body Language" line. It began with "I heart Cincinnati" and "I heart Kentucky," then, a few Cincinnati neighborhoods were added: Over-The-Rhine, Northside, Hyde Park and Clifton.

Well, a new shop in the Pleasant Ridge neighborhood - the Dandy Haberdashery - is carrying a slection of "Cards With a Past" and requested an "I heart Pleasant Ridge" card. Once that was done, it seemed time to create one for my own neighborhood of Oakley.

Generally, the heart colors - sometimes, the type, too - are geared toward how people think of the neighborhood. For example, Hyde Park is deemed to be "preppy," so its card has a lime green heart and pink type. For Pleasant Ridge, I picked up on the colors used in banners hanging in the neighborhood. The Oakley card plays on the oak part of our leafy neighborhood.

The cards are sized to fit long, No. 10 envelopes. And, yes, being a compulsive type, I try to find envelopes whose colors match the cards. Well, I was so enamored with the cards above that I decided to add one for Columbia-Tusculum. It's well-known for its "painted lady" Victorian houses. So, I pulled out all the stops ...

But why is this post headlined "bumper crop"? Well, all the heart cards are becoming bumper stickers. In fact, four already have: Cincinnati, Kentucky, Over-the-Rhine and Northside. More are on the way. MiCA in Over-the-Rhine has all of them; NVISION in Northside has the Cincinnati and Northside; and, all are available at my studio ($5 each).

Next up, Downtown and Mt. Lookout ... gotta go, the card factory beckons. Wait. The image of the heart is from "Young People's Physiology," a book from 1888 in my archive - as are all the images on all my cards. It happens to have been published by The American Book Co., which was headquartered in downtown Cincinnati.  

    

When life hands you lemons ...

I was struck by a nasty virus during the past two weeks that pretty much kept me at home. After spending an entire week in bed, ugh, I got busy on the computer during the second week. Doing what? Thought I'd show you ...

A quartet of greeting cards from the new "Animal Attraction" line. I've been collecting quirky Victorian images of animals for a while, thinking they would become letterpress postcards. Instead, they're regular greeting cards. These are the vertical versions, there are horizontals, too. And every card in every Cards With A past line is now available in three sizes (A2, A6, A7). Yeah, it's a lot of work making the masters, but what else have I had to do lately, besides get well?!

Oh, the images are from Nov. 1888 St. Nicholas Magazine (octopus & whale); Chatterbox for Little Folks, 1883 (dog); a 1908 issue of The Chatterbox magazine (salmon); The Teachers' and Pupils' Cyclopedia, 1904 (frogs).

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

Think about it

© Think About It
mixed-media collage by Sara Pearce

 recycled wrapping paper, paper samples, stencil;

handmade paper; antique medical illustrations;

ink; archival glue; mounted on foam-core board

16.25" x 24.75"

In the spring, I was invited to create a piece for a fall exhibition at the YWCA of Cincinnati's Women's Art Gallery that will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights movement (it opens Friday Oct. 4).

What better day to post the final collage than today - the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, when The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. so eloquently spoke about his dream, a dream that should be everyone's.

At first, I wasn't sure whether to be celebratory of the progress made or critical of the progress yet to be made. Then, I landed on an idea that came from my work with old books, and the saying "you can't judge a book by its cover."

Using duplicates of antique medical books, I would cover one with a collaged black cover, the other with a white one. When a viewer opened the covers they would see that both were the same inside. Inside, the plan was to carve out a well in each, and fill it with the anatomical illustrations from the books, trying to make them identical.

After mulling it over for, well, months, another idea emerged. It was based partly on the original one, but more strident, more protest inspired, and a little less like my normal work. Here it is as it evolved ... the last image shows the back of the collage with its recycled wallpaper, wrapping paper, etc. fully revealed.

As I say in my artist's statement:
"My hope is that after the initial glance at the collage, viewers will look more closely, more deeply - past the peeling skin of the surface and into the cut-out letters. Just as we should look more deeply at each other." 

        

Cunning cat

© Exit strategy: outnumbered, but not outsmarted
mixed-media collage by Sara Pearce
3.25" x 4.5," matted to fit a standard 5" x 7" frame
$35 plus shipping 

While designing next year's calendars, I noticed that thanks to my Sweet Petites binge there were almost enough cat collages for a cat calendar. Just needed one more, and here it is.

The main image is from a paper company ad found in a stack of vintage design magazines - Communication Arts, Print, etc. They were given to me by Elizabeth Mariner, a Cincinnati graphic designer and co-publisher of Express Cincinnati (a free monthly that covers nonprofit, philanthropic and arts organizations in Greater Cincinnati).

When I saw the dogs and cat, the title popped right into my head, and set the direction for the collage. Happily, my deep and highly-organized stash made it easy to find exactly what I wanted. The background is an antique engineering engraving from a 19th century book bought at a library book sale four years ago. The brain was one of two cut from an ad that I used in another collage, below, in 2011. I knew it would come in handy some day ...