A New Series

I am very happy to say that the muse has decided to hang around for a while!  It's funny how sometimes I make collages that are stand-alones and now I seem to be on a roll with a new series. A friend gave me a box of Life, Look and Post magazines from the early 50s to the early 70s.  I have to say the ones from the 50s are my favorites- Thanks to a good friend I have a great title for this one, Tainted Love.  Thanks Tom. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasoo/  The background is a mono-print done with a Gelli plate.  Part of this one is digital and part is good old X-acto cutting.

Art Making Pondering

The piece here is a digital collage I made for a book I recently did using a crown binding that my friend John Arbuckle showed me. http://artjuvenation.blogspot.com/ I do love to create these fantasy worlds.  The digital process can help do this but I find myself now feeling that these kinds of things are now leaving me a bit empty sometimes.  I have been feeling the need to go deeper and plan to do that in a journal I have just made.  I think it is good to step back from time to time to think about what I am doing and why am I doing it.  Do any of you take time to do that?  I do plan to continue to make some things like this digital collage as I think it's fun and I like doing it but I need to balance that with making some things more personally authentic and not really to share in the same way.  I realize that both are OK and I need to balance both kinds of art making.

Traveling Journal

This spread was done for my friend Brian. http://apaperbear.wordpress.com/  I found the very horizontal layout to be challenging. The background is citri-solv National Geographic pages.  The altered photograph pieces are from a shot I took at a lighthouse keepers quarters at a museum on the north shore of Lake Superior.  I was thinking how isolated I would feel if I was there by myself and this piece came from those thoughts. If you click on the image you will be able to see it better.

Grosbeaks & LetterHead

The title to this hand cut and paste collage is the title of this post.  I love to paint paper- I will sometimes paint large sheets of paper like 22' X 30". I cut it to the size of the background that I want to use.  It is incredibly freeing to paint with large strokes and mixing colors right on the sheet.  It is very different from the elements I carefully cut for my collages.  I sometimes will spend a whole day cutting out things to collage with.  It becomes almost a Zen-like exercise as I just get in the zone with a sharp blade. The letterhead guy is from a rubber stamp from a long time ago- the company was called Mars Tokyo.  I love mail art and that stamp made me think of that.

Stage Fright

This one was fun.  It's titled:  Edward's Stage Fright Was Beginning to be a Problem.  Sometimes
it's important to just have fun.  That's the case with this hand cut and paste collage.  I altered a photograph of an auditorium for the background.  The idea just came out of nowhere.  When I was much younger I did some community theater acting.  I had a part in the Neil Simon play, LUV.  There are only 3 characters in the whole play- it was the most lines I had ever had to learn and almost lost it opening night.  When I finished this collage that was the memory that was triggered.

Ticket to Ride

This is a hand cut and paste collage.  The title is: Ticket to Ride and there is for sure a story to be told here.  I am from southern Iowa and this map shows the area I was from- I kept moving north- first northern Iowa- then Minneapolis and now Bemidji in Northern Minnesota.
I am very excited as I just found out I will be teaching 2 classes at The Pacific NW Art School in October of 2014. http://www.pacificnorthwestartschool.org/ This school is located on Whidbey Island (near Seattle).  This is a beautiful location and a wonderful school.  One of the classes I will be teaching there is:  Narrative Collage-Story telling with Collage.

The Search

This collage is hand cut and pasted.  The title is The Search for the True Up-North Experience.  I did have fun with this one- bringing together so many different things.  I guess that's what I really like about collage is the challenge of bringing things together.  I feel my collage is narrative in that there is a story happening.  It is my hope that the viewer will be able to create their own stories from the elements in the collage.  I had a show some time back and had titled it: Fragmented Visions- From Parts to a Whole.  That really works for me in describing what I love to do.