Here Comes Summer!

 Well it is June and with that comes the warm to hot temps.  We may hit 100 tomorrow and Sunday.

I had surgery to repair hernias on Wednesday and I am in recovery mode- this knocked me on my butt- it ended up to be more extensive than I thought. But it is done and I will heal.

Last post I showed 2 in progress photos of the new messenger series. I have finished the 9.  Three are now in frames and will frame the rest a couple at a time.  They are in nine inch square shadowbox frames.  What doesn't show very well in the photos is the different levels of the elements in the dioramas.  I am feeling good about these and now it is time to move onto some other things.  I have several online classes I want to work on- It is amazing to have the chance to take classes with artists that I find motivating.  I will always be a life long learner.

Here are the nine messengers photographed before they go into frames to avoid the glass reflections. The backgrounds for these are monotypes I made- I scanned them and altered them a bit and printed them out.

End of May...

 Greetings- Have not posted for a while- I have still been making art but have also been dealing with some health issues.  My left knee is messed up- I think I hurt it doing lunges exercising. Had xrays and no tears we seen so did physical therapy for 3 week and it still hurts  once in a while...facing the fact that is more than likely is osteoarthritis. I am also looking at some surgery in early June- hernia repair.

I am working on a continuation of a series I started back in 2016- the last show I had in Minnesota before we moved had a series in it that I called messengers- I found some old like 1902  1904 convict photographs- these people were from North Shields England. They held a chalkboard with their crime written on it- shaming photographs- I was so taken with their expressions I just had to do something with them. I cut out the chalk board but left the frame- I made dioramas for the frames. So here is my progress so far. I altered the photographs and printed them out and glued them to 2 ply matboard. I cut them out- and then I made the boxes for the dioramas- The backgrounds for these will be monoprints.

These will be in 9 inch shadow box frames.

Boxes for the dioramas.

The wind continues-and so does artmaking.

 Amazing how the wind just keeps on- my Midwest and Eastern friends dealt with snow this past week. We have dear friends visiting from Minneapolis.  What a joy to have actual time with friends without masks- we are all vaccinated and past the 2 week mark so it is nice. Of course we still wear the masks in public.

I have mentioned the collage planner that the artist Margarete Miller created- it is set up for doing one collage in it a week with prompts.  I have really enjoyed the challenge of this. This time I included the prompt list for each one on the same space. The number is the week- so this first one I am showing is 14- meaning the 14th week of the year. If I keep with this I will have 52 collages in this planner at the end of the year.

This last one is digital- sometimes I get an idea and digital is the best way to make it happen.  I will say the generally I prefer to do analog collage- as in real cut and paste.

Springtime In New Mexico

 I don't think I will ever get use to the wind in the spring time here. Wind gusts of 40 to 50mph are not uncommon.  Living in the dessert adds an issue to the wind- all that small particulate matter ( dust and sand) becomes airborn so sometimes this results in air quality warnings... But it is still beautiful.  My poor Minnesota friends dealt with  a few inches of snow earlier this week....I will take the wind.

We have been vaccinated and are 2 weeks out from it so feeling a bit better.  In fact this past Saturday, the 10th- I took an in-person class at Remarque Print Workshop. There were 5 students- all vaccinated and there was  plenty of room to spread out. Jessica Krichels taught the class- it was called Improvisational Printmaking.   Great fun.  The pieces below are from the class.  It was so nice to be with other artists creating!

The other news I have is that my work was accepted into a gallery here!  Michael Lakoff, the owner is himself an artist. The name of the gallery is The Ricochet Gallery. Albuquerque peeps the is  just outside Old Town on 1102  Mountain Rd.  He opened the gallery in March and it has done very well-I love the variety of work there.  There is a possibility of having a show there next year. And I have 2 pieces in a show right now at The Remarque Print Workshop.  The show is New Mexico Printmaking Invitational. It is a wonderful show- so much diversity here in New Mexico.

I have not titled these pieces yet.

Of course I had to collage on this one.

 

 

Circles of Memories

New Month New Header

 April in New Mexico is wonderful despite the wind. The trees are in bloom and I am seeing more green in the Bosque. We have taken a few hikes and that always feels good.  The landscape here never ceases to amaze me in it's variety and beauty.

This new header is a fold out journal spread I just did. I wanted to change out the lettering for the header as well but can't seem to figure that out. I tend to just let things like blog design just stay as they are for years.  

I recently made a fold out shrine.  I have always loved the idea of shrines- to honor something or someone in a contained space.  I am in an art group that has the members teach something to the group. I taught a collaged meander book- I have no photos of that yet.  One member taught a cardboard shrine lesson.  It inspired me and I ended up making my own way of doing one. I will share that here. During this Covid nightmare we are all in- I was thinking of how thankful I am having my husband Ron.  We have shared so much and supported each other through many challenges. The picture of us in the pop-up is from our wedding several years ago.

Front of Shrine

Back of Shrine

Inside of Shrine

Finished Front of Shrine

Finished Inside of Shrine with Ribbon hold the pop up in place

Inside of shrine showing the pull-down pop-up

Close up pf the pop-up

Another view of the inside of the shrine

March means Wind in New Mexico!

 Well we are into the wind season here and by wind it is not unusual to have 60mph gusts here when the winds come and we have already had some of that. This takes some getting use to.

I have been busy of late. I took a short 5 day online class with Lydia Rink. This was making an interesting slot and tab book- no gluing or sewing- it can be tricky- finding the right weight of paper is the key. Then the rest were collage assignments.  I did a short online class for Fonda Clark Haight's Facebook group A Pause For Play.   This was for a collaged meander book. Making the videos was a real learning experience as I really have done very little video at all. I have a stand for my phone and learned how to use that. It was good for me to do this as I want to be able to do classes myself online in the future.

Here are some things I have made since the last post.   First are  three more hand collages. I still work on those from time to time.

 This was a hand that I found in a graphic arts paper sample catalog. I added the faces.

I used the "waste" from cutting out a hand. I added the orange and the Lowes house shaped paint sample and the door.

Background here is a CitriSolv page, a gel print scrap and collage elements.

I took an online Sketchbooking Class with Lewis Rossignol.  I love his work and he is a very good teache This spread was for his scientific drawing assignment. I did the skull drawings and scanned them so I could make them smaller. I added the collage elements to the spread.

r.https://www.lewisrossignolart.com/. 

 

 

 

These are two of the slot and tab journals I made for Lydia Rink's 5 day challenge class.  Sorry for the blurry photo.

 

These 2 journals have painted and plain paper pages.

First spread in the journal on the left above.

Second spread.

 

Third spread.

February Post

 Hard to believe it is almost mid-February!  While the pandemic has changed so much, I still am able to do art almost daily and it has helped me through this challenging time. I have been doing a lot of mail art and card making as well as journaling. I was just talking with a friend about how art is another language and one that can express ideas and feeling sometimes much better than words- sometimes the combination of word and image is powerful.

This journal spread is titled:   Learning To Swim In The Down Deep.  The down Deep class I mentioned in the other post ended last week but many, myself included, are keeping on with the assignments.  I always learn so much about myself in this Down Deep course.  The deep sharing that happens in that class group is really amazing.

I did several backgrounds on sheets of cheap paper for the class.  Some I have glued into my journal to use.  Then I collaged on top.

These articulated paper dolls were done for an exchange that a friend organized.  I made more to share with the Creative Gents group- this is a group of male mixed media artists. The body is a shrine- it's a rubber stamp- I cut the doors so they would open to reveal a quote.  The arms are the same but I made different pants for them. So they are: Terrance de ABQ, Patron Saint of Mail Art.