Two opening receptions

Lately, my focus on this blog has been to post images of pieces on which I am working or completed pieces or some work of others. As a "web log" I have not used it as much recently to document my "comings and goings". This entry does just that (so I can "look back" once in a while and see "where I was at"). This past Thursday, I was able to enjoy a wonderful coincidence (in the true sense of the word). I had two pieces in two different group shows in Syracuse, NY and both venues were having opening receptions. The first venue was The Tech Garden, an IT incubator which has an art gallery style first floor corridor. The show was baseball-themed and curated by my artist friend Steve Nyland. I'm not actually much of a baseball fan; but as I've stated before on this blog, I'm always interested in the challenge of a theme for the creation of a collage. The second exhibit was called "Sum Art" (i.e. for "Summer Art") and was held at the Point of Contact Gallery (affiliated with Syracuse University) and was curated by Miranda Traudt. My good friend and fellow artist (oil painting) Tom Nettle also had a piece accepted in this show. It was really fun going from one opening reception to the other, and then a nice dinner afterward. What a great night!

woven paper pieces

Here are a couple of "woven paper" pieces that my sister-in-law Donna Durr created. I LOVE them!

sketches and finished product

I often refer to my collage "sketches" when I post some of the images I share on this blog. Here is a good example of a "sketch" that I worked on a couple of nights ago which I finished by trimming the white around the hands and cutting the edges of the minaret of this image of the Taj Mahal. I placed the flower images slightly behind the minarets to provide more depth cues to the piece. By the way, how long did it take me to do this piece? I had the Taj Mahal image laying around my studio for probably close to a year. I liked the image, but it wasn't really "working" with anything else before I was experimenting with this composition. Also by the way, the piece is 4" x 4" and is as yet, untitled (the photos were taken under different lighting conditions too... with the finished piece taken in daylight).

cropped words

I spent some quality time in the studio last night. I finished a piece that has been "laying around" for a while from a previous night's sketches (in the spring). This piece is what one might call a "minimalist collage" -- it has only two elements. I know it was partially inspired by one of my favorite collage artists -- John Stezaker. Some of the portions of the train seem to fuse with some of the portions of the woman's body... but, the integration is disrupted in a way, by the stark border created by the straight cut. This is a second piece in which I have included text, but have not added the text myself (i.e., from another source). When I was doing sketches with these elements and experimenting with the cropping, I found that the already-existing text shown here seemed to "work" with the piece. Firstly, it helps to balance the overall composition. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it provides a "fractured" context for the piece (in a way that mirrors the somewhat fractured partial integration of the two images). A viewer might look to the text for meaning, only to find that the meaning it provides is somewhat ambiguous (perhaps in a number of ways). The piece is entitled "with Alice" (6.5" x 4.5").

multi-media?

Okay, well I guess this piece is technically a multi-media piece because I included a wooden triangle as an element in the right-hand corner. This is atypical of my style; but I thought I'd try something different. I've yet to entitle the piece, but it is intended as a gift for my brother who is an engineer and contractor...