100!

Nothing much to add at this point except to say that this is my 100th post for 2010!!! I've really enjoyed blogging and hope to continue and enhance my posts for 2011. Happy New Year everyone! Make a resolution to increase your creativity in 2011! Enjoy!

quote a propos

So I decided to sit down this evening and re-peruse "Masters: Collage" (Lark Books). I thought this particular quote from curator Randel Plowman was appropriate to accompany the videos I just posted.
"These artists are also tireless collectors, hunters of antique books, unusual papers, yellowed photographs and exotic fibers. As collagists, they find the search for materials to be a creative undertaking in its own right. It's inspiring and idea-inducing, a phase of the artistic journey that awakens new themes and possibilities for work -- a process that's almost as important as the actual act of composition". Enjoy!

thorny movie part 2

Okay, it looks like it worked from this end. Just wanted to show you the second part. I'll be doing a studio video in 2011! ;-)
Enjoy!

movie trial

In search of thorny specimens. PLEASE let me know if you can view this video. Thanks. Enjoy (I hope)!

Paul Vasiliades photography

I was remiss a couple of posts ago not to show at least one of Paul's works individually. Paul graciously donated 13 of his framed photographs for the art auction at The Black Gryphon to raise money for Children's Miracle Network.See more of his work at pvasimages.com

Shout out for Coco

I want to take this opportunity to give a "shout out" to my friend and fellow artist Coco Larrain. One of her awesome and intriguing self-portraits will be on display at the Cotuit Center for the Arts (www.cotuitcenterforthearts.org/) in Cotuit, MA near The Cape in an exhibit entitled "So Big!". The opening is Saturday, January 8th.

Happy Holiday Season to ALL!!!

Thank you so much for visiting this blog. I appreciate it and I hope that you have enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to a very creative upcoming year. Stay tuned!

On Tuesday evening this week we held the Third Annual Black Gryphon Art Auction for Charity in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. My friend Anthony Morgan and his fiancee Lindsay Bretz, along with the great crew at the Black Gryphon restaurant including Dave Jones, Faisal and Ashly, and director of complimentary wine-tasting, Dean, really put together a classy event. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, I suppose, the attendance was sparse, BUT the folks who came out for the event were all sure glad they did. The food was wonderful, the wines were tasty and the art was beautiful. Thirteen beautiful, framed colorful photographs of the Harrisburg area and Aruba! by Hershey photographer Paul Vasiliades (pvasimages.com) were auctioned-off, as well as a piece by photographer Matt Willen and a collage by yours truly. With only 15 people, we raised over $1200 for Children's Miracle Network! I was proud. My favorite part of the night was when one of the couples bid high on a piece and subsequently gave it to one of the wait staff because they knew she wanted it but was being out-bid. Nice Christmas spirit. A big thanks to Tony and his crew and to the generosity of the patrons. Can't wait for next year's event!

Diane Guckemas

This evening my PSY507 (Psychology & The Visual Arts) class had its end-of-the-semester exhibit. My student Diane Guckemas has really taken to collage. That's cool. Here is one of two collages she had in tonight's exhibit. I think it's a great piece. Enjoy!

"Nothing left to do"

This is my latest piece. I have a bit to say about it; but not right now. I want to post this and will "discuss" it in an upcoming post soon. Enjoy!

Limestone Gallery

The opening of the exhibit at the Limestone Gallery in Fayetteville was really nice last night. We went to see the assemblage/box works of Jim Ridlon specifically, but were very pleased to be introduced to the intriguing works of Darryl Furtkamp from New Hampshire. And both artists are really nice to converse with too! So here are some nice examples of the works that can be seen there. Enjoy!

minor (or not) changes

Well, I forgot the exact title that I wanted when I "stuck the mat" so it is now "You may be our only chance" (although I like "hope" much better... too late now). I also matted it with a cream-colored mat and also included a tiny blue rhinestone on the end of this dude's walking stick (or whatever it is). It was difficult to price this one (and perhaps that is good fodder for another post). Enjoy!

"You may be our only hope"

I have now finished this piece. Even though it's only 5" X 7", I'm going to try to mount it within an 11" x 14" mat and frame. I'm also going to see how it looks with a cream-colored mat instead of the black as shown here. This piece will be exhibited (and be for sale) at the Holiday Show at Sculpture Space on December 6th from 5:30-7:30.

my latest

I'm still working on a title for this one. I'm considering calling it "Preparing for the Invasion" (with allusion to the invasion series). It's darker than some of my other work (in more ways than one). Enjoy!

progression

This piece is not done yet, but for those folks who are interested in the process of the development of a piece, I thought this would be interesting. I'm not sure if this will be an "official" part of the "Invasion" series; although it certainly looks like it belongs. Enjoy!

Stanley Center for the Arts (SCA)

My piece entitled "Cerebrocardiotechnicha" has been accepted into the SCA regional show. The opening will be next Tuesday from 5-6:30 (upstairs from the Stanley Theater in downtown Utica). I'm glad this piece is being shown again... and in Utica. I feel very fortunate and grateful that I now have pieces in three exhibits going on simultaneously. All the hours of hard work have "paid-off" (although, truth be told, they've already paid off in terms of the enjoyment I've experienced in the creative process). Enjoy!

Sammy and Emma make collages!

Here are collages made after our Sloppy Joes dinner this evening by my nephew Sammy (age 11) and niece Emma (age 9).

"Simulatio" reception

Oh yes, I forgot to post the pic of the opening reception. I want to thank folks for coming out on this rainy afternoon. Hope you enjoyed.

"Simulatio" opening at MVCC

I really had a nice time at Mohawk Valley Community College this afternoon. My fellow artists are cool and the people seemed to like the show. The pieces are very nicely complementary. I'm very pleased! Check it out at MVCC in the small works gallery in the Technology building. Just a couple shots to share with you (hey, where's the pic buton?). Enjoy!

The light box "Brunoven"

I've finally finished the details of this light box I have been working on. It's entitled "Brunoven", which is an anagram of "noun verb". Each of the words written near the images can be used as a verb or a noun -- branch, pet, yellow, reach, block, love and head. The title is also suggestive of an "oven" and perhaps a word of German origin.. "brun". Enjoy!

Day 2 of The Invasion

Okay, so here is the finished product (the one with the double matting, to match Day 1). The first one in this series (the one with the colorful bird) was purchased by my colleague Dr. Tyson Kreiger. I was motivated to continue doing a series of these pieces because I like them and it seems that others do too. I was contemplating including a bird head in each one, but when I saw how nice this lady's head looked, I just couldn't resist. But... I did try a composition with a golden eagle head (as shown). When I used this head, I certainly had to change the color scheme of the background space imagery. It provided me with the opportunity to do some photographing to use in a workshop about collage composition I hope to put on one day. Enjoy!

Dinner 'n' Collage, Take 3

Mary Carol and I and my cousin Dan Sanders have hosted a couple of what we have called "Dinner 'n' Collage" events in our home. Dan is a wonderful cook (he's been featured on The History Channel's show "Food Tech" and teaches classes in Mexican cooking). After a nice dinner with drinks, the table is cleared and then I spread-out lots of pre-coated specimens from which guests choose to create wonderful collages. It's great fun and folks seem to really get into it and "dig" the finished product. Here are some of the collages created by others (none are mine) last night. I think they're great! Enjoy!

Fire zone - progress of the next invasion

After about a month and a half of feeling minimally inspired, on Thursday of this week I had the time to spend in my studio (and had cleaned-up my area a bit) and ended-up feeling "on fire" again or "in the zone" with regard to collage activities. It was exhilarating and greatly appreciated! I have several projects underway, but thought I would share a couple photographs of the second in a series of "invasion" collages I have in mind. Many people ask "how do come up with your ideas for a collage?". One of the things that I do LOTS of, is trial-and-error. I interchange many elements multiple times to finally arrive at what looks good to me. Fortunately, what looks good to me apparently looks good to some others as well. But the point here is that the collage doesn't just "come together" (i.e., it's not just simply "thrown together" quickly... in my case). Here are some of the "trials" that I have looked at this week. It's unlikely that all the elements shown will make it to the finished piece. But you can probably see things "developing". Enjoy!

new assemblage

A new piece for the upcoming show at Mohawk Valley Community College. Enjoy!

PSY507 - Psychology & The Visual Arts

Last night I had a great session with my class at Utica College. The course is NOT a studio art course - we mostly look at lots of art and discuss the various techniques used to create various effects like illusion of depth or Gestalt groupings. But last night was "studio art night". We started with some color mixing exercises and then spent the majority of the night creating collages. Here are a couple that were created by students (I will post more, but many of the images were slightly blurring for some reason). I was proud of the group for what the created. Enjoy!

National Collage Society Annual Juried Exhibit

You can now view this year's Annual Juried Exhibit of the National Collage Society at http://www.nationalcollage.com/2010.html.
In fact, this year the society has "gone green", so that there is no physical exhibit of this show at any gallery. Not sure if I really like that idea (I think there should be a gallery exhibit as well). The thumbnail images are a bit deceiving as they show only a small section of each respective image. It's best to open the first image and then hit "next" to go through the show. Enjoy!

Robert Mars

Robert Mars is currently featured on the NOTpaper blog site. For those of you not familiar with his work, it's really worth the time to check it out. See: robertmars.com/artwork/index.php

Emergent surprises

A couple weeks ago, I showed students in my Psychology & Visual Arts class the process of adhering elements in collages which I learned from Jonathan Talbot. I brought in a bunch of scraps that had been laying around in my studio just to show them the process. I wasn't expecting to put together anything usable or necessarily aesthetically-pleasing in such a spontaneous demonstration (btw, Jonathan is VERY good at that!). Since then, I have been using that piece to try some techniques with paint and other scraps. Last night when I looked at this "throw-away" piece, it struck some note with me, so I decided to see what it looked like in a mat and frame. Lo and behold, I actually kind of liked it. It doesn't really represent my normal "voice", and I don't think it'll show-up in any exhibit, but I found it intriguing. So I went to bed last night encouraged, for whatever reason; and I think I "needed" something like this to happen to help me through this hairy leg of my creative journey (see recent "contamination" post). Enjoy!

Not sure

I'm not sure what I think of this piece; but I was trying to do a more painterly piece. The somewhat minimalist aspect of it I think was inspired by my watching recently the documentary about Ray Johnson ("How to Draw a Bunny") Enjoy!

Frank Viola

Here's the GREAT piece I got at the CHAIRity auction done by my artist friend Frank Viola!

Strange, "contaminated" place

I have been blessed this year with artistic successes (chronicled on this blog site). The culmination of a good year was my solo exhibit at the Mohawk Valley Center for the Arts. After the whirlwind summer and trip to Europe; followed by hanging my show and trying to get the school year off to a good start, I now find myself ready to "get back to the table" where I enjoy creating my collages. But I find that in some way(s) my recent successes have "contaminated" my process, in a way. I am certainly not complaining; but I am recognizing that I find myself feeling like I need to put together a "good/great" piece every time I sit down to create. That is, I feel much more self-conscious about trying to do something really impressive; as opposed to "simply" creating pieces that express myself artistically. It doesn't really feel like an artistic "block", but rather it feels like too much self-monitoring. And yet, I don't want to abandon all monitoring so that I'm throwing together crap. Today after grading statistics exams, I've decided to do some cleaning of my messy studio and getting reacquainted with my various specimens of collage materials. I am thinking of trying some new styles, but at the same time do not want to compromise my "voice". All of this is good in that it continues the on-going contemplative state of being a creator, methinks. But it has been a week or two of self-uneasiness in a way. I am looking forward to what the road(s) ahead have in store. If you've had similar experiences, I'd love to hear from you about it. Hope you enjoy!

Sparkleface

There is a link to the blog site "Notpaper" above. This site features various collage artists and includes a short "interview" with each artist. I really enjoy the variety of techniques and the creative expressions shown on this site (it's updated very frequently too). Today I was absolutely blown-away by the collage work of "Sparkleface". I encourage everyone interested in collage to check out the work of this artist. The flickr site for more work is linked as well (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sparkleface/). Really nice work. The darker one I show here is one of my favorites! Enjoy!