New Work: Temple

Temple, 17.5 x 11 inches, mixed media

ingredients: vintage book cover, monotype, vintage maps and engineering drawings, other vintage ephemera, metallic ink, found objects, brads, brass wire, acrylic paint, artist pens, feathers

So will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to thee.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 "Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life."                                                                                                                              - Hermann Hesse

Trials and Tribulations, and New Work on the Way

I have several pieces that have been laying around my studio that haven't been shared due to the fact that I didn't have a decent, fully functional camera. After much research and thought, I finally bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000. It was more than I really wanted to spend, but I needed something that would take excellent artwork photos, and a DSLR costs that much just for the body; then, in addition, you have to buy various expensive lenses for different purposes. Another point against a DSLR is that I realized that I didn't want to be bothered with lugging around a bunch of lenses, which I would have to be changing all the time, so a high-end fixed-lens camera seemed like the perfect choice.

So now, if the weather cooperates, I will be able to photograph those pieces, along with everything that needs to be re-photographed because I originally used my cell phone, and the photos are seriously lacking in quality. Especially since I'm going to be building a new website, I want the image quality to be as high as it can. I don't really want to upload my current photos, and then have to go back and replace them.

But now I have a new problem; setting up the new camera is somewhat (read: a lot) daunting. I'm afraid it's going to take a while. It has so many features, I'm not even sure what some of them mean! So in the meantime, I'll have to keep using my phone, unless they are flat and can fit on my scanner. Sheesh!

Anyway, I'm finally taking time from my technical studies to make some art! Here are a few sneak peaks of what's happening in the studio. Taken, of course, with my cellphone.

Materials used: vintage book cover, vintage maps, antique engineering drawing, monotype, book pages.  This one has a ways to go, but so far I'm satisfied with it.

I hope you are all having a great weekend, and making some art! Namaste, my friends.

Mary Walker's Pants

When I started working on this collage, I didn't really know who Mary Walker was; I just thought she looked fascinating, and that it was pretty bizarre that someone could be arrested for wearing pants. So I looked her up to see what else I could find out.

Mary Walker's Pants

mixed media collage, 11 x 8.5 inches

ingredients: vintage book cover, vintage book pages and ephemera, cut-outs, child's drawing, lace, image transfer

I also found a page in this history book where someone had made some notes about women's rights, written right underneath the heading, "Manifest Destiny." Since women's rights seem to be in the news quite a bit lately, I thought now might be an appropriate time to share this.

Here are some things I learned about Mary Edwards Walker (November 26, 1832 – February 21, 1919): According to Wikipedia, she "was an American feminist, abolitionist, prohibitionist, alleged spy, prisoner of war, and surgeon. As of 2017, she is the only woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor." Though women were not allowed to serve as doctors, she nonetheless served the Union Army during the Civil War as a surgeon in an army hospital, and was captured by the Confederates when crossing the lines to treat injured civilians, and sent to the prison at Richmond.

   After the war, "she became a writer and lecturer, supporting such issues as health care, temperance, women's rights, and dress reform for women. She was frequently arrested for wearing men's clothing, and insisted on her right to wear clothing that she thought appropriate.
Walker was a member of the central woman's suffrage Bureau in Washington... She attempted to register to vote in 1871, but was turned away. The initial stance of the movement, following Walker's lead, was to claim that women already had the right to vote, and Congress needed only to enact enabling legislation."  She also wrote books and articles about these issues which concerned her so deeply. (Wikipedia)

Yet the history book only mentioned that she regularly got herself in trouble by wearing pants. What else, I wonder, has been left out of our history books?

Fear Not

Fear Not      

 mixed media collage, 9 x 5 inches

ingredients: map fragments, vintage book pages, image transfers, watercolor pencils, mica, stitching

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
― Marie Curie



“I believe that words are strong, that they can overwhelm what we fear when fear seems more awful than life is good.”
― Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Under The Stars

Under the Stars, 10.5 x 8.5 inches

ingredients: vintage book cover; vintage book parts, ephemera, and sheet music; found objects (antique optical lens), stitching

This one is definitely a maximalist piece. The spell check informs me that this not a real word, but it is because I just made it up! To me, it is the opposite of minimalism; in other words, did I go too far? Everything but the kitchen sink, right? For some reason, however, I think it works. Everything, after all is under the stars.

This piece is available for purchase on my website, here, along with several different-sized prints of the piece. Happy Monday, everyone!

New Work: Lost II

Lost II

ingredients: vintage book covers, vintage ledger paper, lace, acrylic ink, Caran d'Ache crayons, watercolor pencils, image transfer, cloth, stitching




I write about the power of trying, because I want to be okay with failing. I write about generosity because I battle selfishness. I write about joy because I know sorrow. I write about faith because I almost lost mine, and I know what it is to be broken and in need of redemption. I write about gratitude because I am thankful - for all of it.
                                                                                                               ~ Kristin Armstrong

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

                                                                                                          ~ Henry David Thoreau

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
                                                                                                                          ~ Pema Chodron

Weekly Quick Collage: Majorette

Majorette

“Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it.”                                                                                                               – William C. Durant

New Work: The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper

9.5  x 15  inches

ingredients:  vintage book cover, found objects, cut-outs, lace, vintage ephemera, decorative papers, vintage photograph, feather, pen nib

This piece is based on an 1892 short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an important piece of early feminist literature. In the story, the protagonist is confined to an upstairs bedroom for a "rest cure" for what would now probably be diagnosed as post-partum depression.  She is forbidden to work (she's a writer), and begins to obsess about the yellow wallpaper and what might be lurking behind it, eventually tearing it off the walls. According to Wikipedia, "The story depicts the effect of confinement on the narrator's mental health and her descent into psychosis."

 I've always been fascinated by the story, and in fact, wrote a paper on it in college, wherein I compared the theme of madness in The Yellow Wallpaper to it's use in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.  Gilman's story is a bit creepy, yes, but so well-written, and really gives us a shocking and sad view of how such illnesses were treated back then.

 Some details:

 

 Hope you like it!

Flight Talismans

This one just came together without much planning at all; in fact, when I started it, I wasn't even sure of the subject matter. I just started building layers of collage and symbols, then suddenly made a decision to draw/embroider a wing on it, and it's meaning became clearer from there.

Flight Talismans       21.75 x 8 inches

ingredients: vintage book cover, vintage maps and book pages, image transfers, woodblock print on cloth, stitching, feathers, brass wire, bone, glass, beads, found objects, stick     

I apologize for the quality of the photo, as I had to lay the piece atop 2 bricks because of the stick sticking out beyond the edges of the book cover. I will have to take a photo later with a nice black background, but didn't want to take the trouble to set that up right now.

Here are a couple of details; if you want to see more close-ups, go to my last post.

Thanks for looking, everyone, and have a great week!  

Fragments of Memory

New work:

Fragments of Memory

ingredients: vintage book cover, various vintage ephemera (book page, post cards, notebook scrap, envelope, dress pattern), vintage textiles, image transfers, colored pencil drawings, pressed flowers, glass, stitching




Fragments

My eyes are not a camera
my ears cannot hold
the sounds
they slide by
like flashes of light
through the window of a speeding car

Between one fragment
and the next
the spaces are
half filled in with
imagination

and the other half - ?




Don't ask me where the poem came from. The other half, maybe?

Something to Share, and a Give-away

I have a few pieces of good news and some other things to share with you.  First of all, I don't think I mentioned that one of my entries was accepted into the National Collage Society's

There were over 500 entries, so I was pretty excited that mine was chosen.  This year's exhibit is truly one of the best collections of collages I've seen in a very long time, even if I do say so myself, so please check it out.  A couple of examples to whet your appetite:

 Jan Filarski, The Dots Ran Away

Mike Church, Overtime

Dick Allowatt, Orbit

 As if that wasn't enough good fortune, I was recently notified that my work will be featured in ArtBuzz, the 2014 Collection - a hard cover book of work by the winners of their annual juried fine art search, in which I was awarded 2nd place for mixed media.

 Needless to say, I was thrilled (and surprised)!  You can pre-order a copy of it at the artist's discount price here.

Also, I'm very happy to announce that I have three pieces in a curated traveling show which will be opening in Louisville, Kentucky on December 7th.  If you're in the area, I hope you'll be able to come by for the opening reception.

Time has been shooting by at a very high rate of speed, and here it is, November already! It seems an appropriate time, with the holidays approaching, for the give-away I've been meaning to have for ages now, but never got around to. And since it's been so long, I've decided to double the fun and pick two winners this time.  Winners will receive:

 A generous selection of pages from my huge collection of antique and vintage books, including old textbook pages, dictionary pages (both English and Japanese), and maps (not the one pictured below).

The winners will also get several pieces of decorative papers, and to top it all off, each will receive one of the following books:

Wabi Sabi: The Art of Everyday Life, by Diane Durston

-or-

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

All you have to do to be entered in the drawing is to leave a comment on this post.  You don't have to be a follower, but if you are, your name will be put in twice.  On Thanksgiving day, one of my dogs will choose the winners, and I'll post the names by the next day.  I thought Thanksgiving was an appropriate time for this, because I am truly so grateful to all my readers and followers for being the awesome people, advice-givers, cheerleaders and inspirations you are.  Good luck!

Doors of Perception

 “There are things known and things unknown and in between are the doors of perception."
                                                                                               ~ Ray Manzarek of the Doors, 1967

Art and religion, carnivals and saturnalia, dancing and listening to oratory—all these have served, in H. G. Wells’s phrase, as Doors in the Wall. And for private, for everyday use there have always been chemical intoxicants.
                                                                                      Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception, 1954

Doors of Perception

ingredients: vintage book covers, vintage book page, vintage used envelope, image transfers, acetate, acrylic ink, watercolor pencils, metallic and nonmetallic artist pens, mica, leaf, found objects, milagros, stitching, glass beads, brads, beads, electrical resisters, vintage key




If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. 
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.
                                                                  ~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1790




reference: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/11/17/rock-doors-between/

Message From a Dream - finished

I have completed the last piece I was working on for the "In Your Dreams" exhibit which is coming up in February.

Message From a Dream

 ingredients: vintage book covers, vintage Japanese envelopes, stamps, vintage book pages, image transfers, graphite drawing, watercolor pencils, metallic oil crayon, mica, feather, stitching

I've also revised the two "language of earth" pieces I was working on, thanks to the valuable opinions and advice you all gave me when I was stuck. It really does help to have some fresh eyes on work that you've been staring at for so long that your perspective is all skewed and wonky, don't you think?  I decided to ditch my original idea of connecting these together as one piece, as it seems they will each work better on their own.  If you want to see what these looked like before, click here.

 The Earth Sings

 As someone had suggested, I tried to connect the sections of this piece a bit better so that it's more integrated, and flows better from one section to another. I added brads to the compass, and spread the hydrangea petals from the top left into other sections of the piece; the stitching has been extended into the bottom left part where the globe is.

The Earth Speaks

On this piece, I just added blue stitching to the metal object plus a little more connecting it and the map, as well as to the ash seeds at the top.  I'm actually pretty happy with the way this one turned out.

I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season, and not getting too stressed out.  I will be trying to do the same.