Top 5

It's cliche for parents to insist that they do not have a favorite child -- that each provides their own blessings and challenges. Perhaps the same can be said of an artist's perspective of his/her creative works. But from my experience, I would not go that far. And in fact, I have submitted many pieces to various juried shows and am often particularly annoyed when a piece doesn't get accepted that I considered "a very strong piece" -- other times, I'm more understanding ("Well, it wasn't my strongest submission"). With that being said, I present a piece I finished yesterday, that I think is in my top 5 best collages I have ever done. I worked on-and-off on this piece for weeks -- having good breakthroughs followed by some mistake or challenge. The piece was originally inspired by the original frame and mat coloring of this garage sale acquisition. The faded green and blue mat seemed to be "calling out" for some of the green and blue-green vintage papers that had been accumulating in my studio space. When I placed the beautiful woman as the focal point for the piece, it just felt so "right". And the flower -- which had been laying around the studio table for months -- complemented the color palette perfectly (and the somber facial expression of the lady too). The top image is the finished piece. But I included the other image (bottom) to highlight the last decision I had to make with this piece. I had originally thought the cream-colored sides would work well; but there was a crease and a bit of asymmetry that I didn't like. So I tried more detailed edging, and it seemed to work well. There a bit of a different vibe for each (and I like both); but I finally went for the detailed edging instead of the cream. The piece is entitled "The Sacredness of Comfort and Care" (9.5" x 9.5"; 14" x 14" framed).

NCS small format

 As part of my activities in the studio recently, I decided to experiment with some ideas for the upcoming small works exhibit of the National Collage Society. The pieces for this event are required to be just 4" x 6". I like the challenge of this small scale. Here are some of the images I was playing with...

I was particularly interested in the way the different background on these to "experiements", created such a dramatic contrast. I like them both equally well, I think.

Don't not sweat the details

Ah, the ole double-negative. Sometimes, folks say "Don't sweat the details", implying that it is not worth getting upset or obsessing over "the little things". When I'm doing my collages, I spend A LOT of time with the details. I DO sweat the details. I think the result of doing so, contributes to why people respond positively to my work. I've done a post like this in the past, but I think it's always worth a "refresher". The detail to which I am referring in this case, is the painting of the edges of my elements. Doing this, covers up the "interior" white of the paper. It is especially important when the image is dark, and the paper is thick. And what happens in an overall composition, is that it tends to "allow" all of the elements to be seen as a more integrated whole. Sometimes, viewers mistakenly think my collages are digital, precisely because the images are so integrated -- the reason that I always explicitly refer to my collages as "analog collages". Here's a good example of before and after painting the edge...

 

The Pet of the Hospital Nurses

Here is a piece I finished yesterday (I'm on a roll). It's entitled "The Pet of the Hospital Nurses" and is 11" x 11" (16" x 16" framed)...

I thought is might be interesting to show the evolution of the piece. It started with my interest in the "base" image, an etching from a book from the 1870s, which was entitled "The Pet of the Hospital Nurses".

I cut out the nurses and baby, and had experimented with various backgrounds...

I had intentions of extracting the baby's head from the image and replacing it with some kind of animal head. I realize that's a little bit "obvious" for the composition related to a teacher's "pet", or in this case, the nurses' pet; so I felt like I needed it to be compelling. As that idea "sat on the back burner". Then, I came across this etched image in another vintage book from the turn of the 20th century of a British politician named William Wilberforce. I found the pose in this portrait to be quite interesting. It looked a little "bratty" to me.. and weird (which, of course, was compelling to me... although I don't like using images of "famous" people, typically).

As I was cutting the body out of this image, I left a piece of the arm of the chair attached (mostly as a precaution to get the entire body of Wilberforce, and to not cut too much away... easier to cut more, than try to piece back together).

When I was experimenting with placement into the nurses image, I noticed that the arm of the chair was positioned so that it looked like some kind of weird prothetic arm of the nurse on the right. Okay!... another element of weirdness. Always welcome with me ;-) So I trimmed everything down, but left the arm of the chair attached.

I then had to look for an animal tail as another element. I got one from a contemporary wildlife book of a Senegalese galago. It seemed to work well. Then it was a matter of doing some more trimming (micro-cutting) and painting the edges of the individual elements, and placing them precisely together. I initially wanted to leave the title of the etching ("The Pet of the Hospital Nurses"), in tact, to be part of the composition. But I found it too "distracting" (or causing an imbalance).

I also had to decide whether to place the nurses arm in front of the border element, or behind (likewise for the bush on the bottom left). Once I decided, I proceeded with the border all the way around. I had to splice a number of these borders together and place them VERY precisely (so that the mat would be perfectly square to the borders. That process alone, took about two hours of careful splicing and placement. So, once again, here's the final composition:

new piece

After not creating a finished piece in a while, I finally got this one done. I also have two more which should be completed within the week (I hope). I haven't settled on a title for this one yet, but it might be "Music and Math" (5" x 7"; 8" x 10" framed). It need a better mat too.

Art opening at The Other Side (in Utica, NY)

 I am SO fortunate to live in an area where so many talented artists reside, and which is rife with folks who appreciate and support the arts. I went to another opening reception for an art exhibit last night, featuring Charlie Fisher's work. Charlie is a founding member of Sculpture Space, an international sculpture residency space in Utica. These works are composed of cardboard (with some bound in wire). Beautiful group of works. 

Rome Art and Community Center opening reception

I had a nice time at the opening for the exhibit "Urban Landscapes" at RACC last night. It's a good show and I got to see some of my art world friends as well. It's interesting... I don't usually do what I would consider "urban landscape" style pieces. But if you follow this blog at all, you know that I created a piece specifically in response to the theme for this exhibit. I liked the way the piece turned out; and folks seem to be responding to the piece. I've gotten a number aof positive comments about it. Here are some photos from the event...

Ben Garrington

Ben and I talked about this intentional frame style. Very cool.

Donna Durr

This photomontage was incredible. Three different colored paper for the photgraph, cut and integrated as a single image. VERY impressive piece!

Donna's large-scale collage.