Weekly Quick Collage: Landscape II

Landscape II

collage, 5 x 7 inches

A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. Franklin D. Roosevelt
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/land.html

A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. Franklin D. Roosevelt
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/land.html

Whether we or our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/wendell_berry.html

“So, friends, every day do something that won't compute ... Give your approval to all you cannot understand ... Ask the questions that have no answers. Put your faith in two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years ... Laugh. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts ... Practice resurrection.”
― The Country of Marriage, Wendell Berry          (probably my favorite Wendell Berry quote ever)

"Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.”
― Wendell Berry



“It may be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
― Wendell Berry

Weekly Quick Collage: Landscape I

Landscape I

collage, 4 x 6.75 inches

In honor of Earth Day (yesterday), I thought I would post a landscape. Making a collage in a landscape format seems like it would be fairly simple, but for me it was not. I struggled to find a balance of semi-realistic and abstract elements; I wanted it to read as a collage, but with an abstract twist. This is definitely going to take more practice; I modified this piece several times, until I felt it was as close to my vision as I was likely to get. I'm sure more will follow, as I will tackle this subject again in the future.

I will leave you with some of Wendell Berry's lines to inspire you for Earth Day:

 “The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
― Wendell Berry, The selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.”
― Wendell Berry

Weekly Quick Collage: Imaginary Landscape

Imaginary Landscape         5 x 5 inches

This one is very different from the weekly collages I've done so far; in both style and materials, it's much more like the pieces in my long-onging series called Transformations. These are loosely landscape-based collages I make from scraps of old monotypes, all 7 x 7 inches.

Hope you enjoy it!

Another Baby Step and More Possibilties

I've been engaged in some artistic explorations lately, in hopes of stumbling onto a new artistic path, which I discussed in more detail in a previous post. I feel like I've been hopping willy-nilly from one idea to another, but I guess that's okay for now.  Here's the result of my last couple of days of exploration.

I was just looking at some scraps I had laying around; this was a piece that I cut off the original piece that became the Buddha "Paradox" piece.  I'm not sure if that made sense, but I can't think of a better way to put it.  As I was thinking, "should I pitch this scrap or keep it?", I suddenly began to see a strange sort of landscape image in it.  So, why not?  I scribbled a bit here, liked it, and scribbled a bit there; I glued on some bits of map and other papers, and added some more color, and... a kind of semi-abstract imaginary landscape emerged.

It seems to be an amalgamation of all the ideas I've been playing with over the past year or so:  the collages made from more collage-y things (as opposed to just my monotypes); the maps from my "Traveler's Tale" series (which isn't finished yet, btw); the landscapiness from my monotype collages; and a bit more of an abstract quality.  Also, it occurs to me that my trip to the Rocky mountains last summer has impressed itself  on my subconscious more strongly than I realized; I can see the shapes of the Rockies in some of these landscape elements, for sure.

I'm intrigued, and could maybe see myself doing a series of these.  If I do, I think they would need to be larger, with more saturated colors, and perhaps pushed even more toward abstraction.  What do you think?