technological "approval"

I have started placing elements onto the grid that I made (see previous post). It has become an interesting project in a number of ways. First of all, it is extremely "tedious"... but not really in a bad way (does "tedious" necessarily connote something negative?). It's time-consuming for sure; but I enjoy working on it. I find that the time it takes to listen to an entire CD seems to fly by (flow?). But here's "the rub" with this piece: I will not know if I have been successful in completing the piece until I try to "scan" it with a QR code reader. It will take dozens of hours to "see if it works".

Is it necessary for QR codes to be in black-and-white? Or can they be created with dark and light contrast "cells"? BTW, IF YOU KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION, PLEASE DO NOT SHARE... I would rather go through the process of finding out via this collage project. If I am successful, then that would mean I will have created a piece which will end up "referencing itself" through my blog and will become an interactive piece of work within the optics of a piece of machinery and the information matrix of the internet. I would assume that I am not the first one to do this... but I'm loving it nonetheless.

ambitious projects

I have been busy recently (and of course, I am not the only one who is busy... and "what's new"?). Just got back from another conference late Sunday night. The conference was for the Southern Humanities Council and was held in Athens, GA. What an absolutely wonderful group of folks! They are the most open, supportive and stimulating group of academics I have ever been around. I did a talk about Joseph Cornell's artwork and the theme of "bubbles" (related to his work -- a la "Soap Bubbles Sets" and his life and spiritual views). I also read some of my original poetry. It was a great time! I always come back from that conference re-invigorated and ready to produce and create. The problem is, I have had an excruciating sinus headache all week and so have been getting "business-y" stuff done, but not much else. Today I am starting to feel a little better, so I am posting. In addition to doing some "regular" collage work (I hope), I am also embarking on two pretty ambitious projects. Firstly, my guitar is fully prepped and I am ready to begin to place elements down on it. I am a little bit concerned about the actual elements that I will be using, however. I was thinking of putting down a background layer of musical notes and then working "up" from there. But, I don't want the finished piece to be too "cliché" (i.e., with musical notes). I think it would look nice; but will it look too kitsch? We'll see what emerges. The second project involves a 32 x 32 matrix. That's OVER 900 cells into which I will place individual elements. I will withhold telling you what the matrix is all about until I finish the piece. Anyway, looking forward to getting "back to the table" now that I am feeling better!

hiatus... stay tuned

Just returned from a week in The Dominican Republic and realized on vacation how much I miss being in my studio (my "in home" vacation spot). This week is going to be spent mostly on catching up with school prep work for the beginning of the semester... but then it's back to the cutting table for more collage. Just wanted to let folks know about the absence of posts in recent days.

Reste forte!

Tonight my thoughts are with the people of Paris and all of France...

"Untitled" (8" x 10")

I typically am opposed to using "Untitled" as a "title" for my artwork. I usually have fun with titles and consider them to be an integral part of not only the creative process, but the actual work itself. Some of my titles are obscure, but I can't think of a time when I have not entitled a work. But I have decided to title this piece (yes, I did finalize this from the sketches from the other night)... "Untitled". I suppose I could have entitled it "Them, Charlie'"... but that would have been quite "obvious" and certainly would have been no fun. But why "Untitled"? Well, this may be disappointing to some readers of this blog, but I am not inclined to explain why; in a way, that would ruin the purpose of my selection of "Untitled". Sorry ;-)  Comments welcome...

sketches and synchronicity

This is not the first post in which I have written about synchronicity (and I suspect it won't be the last). I was having fun last night in my studio area working on some collage sketches, and created two which I think I will pursue. One of the sketches involves cropping as an "element" in a way. I have a beautiful photo of craters on the moon (I believe from Life magazine) with the quote "We is down among them, Charlie". I have had this image for a while as it strikes me as particularly aesthetic partly because of its beautiful patina. When I was playing with different elements to place on this image, I realized that I could crop the quote to leave only "them, Charlie'". I found this to be particularly intriguing in its decontextualized form. The image of the child is from a 1964 "Encyclopedia of Photography" source. I usually try to match the grey patinas of various elements within a composition to create a seamless image. But in this case, the patina of the craters and the boy produce an interesting contrast methinks. I need to look at this piece more before I decide whether I like it enough to finalize the piece.
The second sketch (with the eye) is a bit of an unusual composition for me as I was experimenting with an open mind. I would like to create a piece to give as a gift to Jonathan Talbot (hmm, I wonder if he reads this blog) and have a great substrate piece that was a book cover with the beginning of the title being "Jonathan and his Continent". I was playing with additional elements and decided that I kind of like the "big eye" image in this context. Of course, whenever I see a single "big eye" I am reminded of works by Odilon Redon. So here's where the synchronicity comes in. I am currently working on a paper presentation about the salience of psychosexuality in the creative works of Joseph Cornell. I am reading Lindsay Blair's book entitled "Joseph Cornell's Vision of Spiritual Order". The book has many images of Cornell's various collages and assemblages but only a few of other artists' works. One of these other works which I happened to come across just this morning was the Lithograph of Redon's shown below. Blair writes of the importance of "chance connections" for Cornell: "Synchronicity is seen as a signal, a guide to be trusted. All manner of unlikely relationships are thus established". But since I feel like my own life is flooded with synchronicities, I was particularly interested in Blair's follow-up statements: "Even so, they [synchronicities] are not thought of as fate or as coincidence, which are seen as outside agencies, but as quite the opposite -- the mind as director, albeit at times the unwitting director of association. Cornell developed strategies to encourage his mind to make connections, to be in a state of readiness, of receptivity" (pp. 143-144). This is the best explanation for the apparent flood of synchronicities in my life.

Holiday fun

Just thought I would post the collage that were created by my niece Vivian and her friend Paige when they visited us over the holidays. I think they both did a nice niece piece ;-)