Speaking of COVID...

After two and a half years of carefully avoiding COVID, both at school and in the general public, I finally contracting it earlier this month. I was fully vaccinated, so I think that prevented me from getting it too badly. I also went on anti-viral medication immediately. SO I had just a couple of pretty bad days, and then about two weeks of tiredness and low stamina. I back to feeling mostly better, but still have some lingering symptoms like a dry cough. I also had other life stuff get in the way of being able to spend time in my studio. School politics have been very bad lately. I resigned from my position on the Tenure & Promotion Committee. I loved serving on that committee and felt like I did a good job; but the politics got to be too much. I also went to Denver last month for my niece Jessica's wedding. THAT was a great time! And, unfortunately and sadly, my mother-in-law Peg, died unexpectedly after a short bout (mercifully) with cancer. Sometimes we need to put aside our creative work to deal with the other things that life throws at us. I am looking forward to getting back in the studio soon and cranking out some new works. I was able to do this small piece recently...

KAYLA SPIVEY exhibit, "From the Ashes"

When I had my solo exhibition at 4 Elements Studio in 2021, I gave an artist's talk about my collage work. A couple days after that presentation, I got an e-mail from Kayla Spivey, who was a resident artist at 4 Elements at the time. She told me that she enjoyed my talk and was interested in talking to me more about art and creativity. Since then, we have spent lots of time texting and talking about the creative process and art-making. This fall, Kayla had her first solo exhibition, at 4 Elements Studio. It was a wonderful exhibit featuring an impressive and ambitious project for which she made hundreds of ceramic tiles which she pressed with fabric (before firing) and meticulously hand-painted. She used her background in chemistry (she has a bachelor's and master's degree in chemistry-related areas) to work on paint composition, and to work on developing the correct composition of materials so that she could incorporate her mother's ashes into the work. The results were beautiful and powerfully emotional/psychological. I had the honor of introducing her at the opening. But unfortunately and sadly, Kayla contracted COVID, and missed the opening. The many folks in attendance loved the work, of course.

FB post from a fellow collagist

Recently, Dante Jericho (not sure if that's her real name of her FB name) posted this photo and wrote: "Just an everyday example of some of the freaky s#%t you can expect to find on the floor when you're a collage artist. Just glad I spotted it at 2PM rather than 2AM"

I can TOTALLY relate! ;-)

 

Rome Regional Exhibit (in Rome, NY)

Had a GREAT at the opening reception of the Rome Regional Juried Exhibition last night. It was a really nice collection of works... and I git another Honorable Mention for "Who's Protecting Whom, and from What?". In addition, my sister-in-law, Donna Durr, won Best in Show! We enjoyed celebratory cocktails afterward. Another friend and fellow artist won a special award. Very exciting!

Knight

 This new piece is entitled "Knight of the Tail-Gunner" (7" x 7"). I really enjoyed using such saturated elements (even the grays).

Coordinated Diptych

[An explanation of the source material for this piece can be found in the previous post]. 

"Collaborative" or "Coordinated"

 My good friend and fellow collagist Anthony Morgan and I are involved in another collage project. I'm not sure if we should call it a "collaborative" project, or a "coordinated" project. It's the third in a series of projects we have done for which we each use the same source materials and create independent compositions from all the potential elements. For the first project, we each used the same issue of Life magazine for our source materials and created a collage of the same size and orientation -- there were no other "constraints". For the second project, we used an issue of The Ladies Home Journal for our source materials. The cover of the particular issues was primarily a red-orange color, and I suggested that, in order to "connect" the compositions in some way, perhaps at least one of the compositional elements be from the red-orange cover. I have posted the finished collages in previous posts. For each of these projects, Toeny and I worked independently. That is, we did not see each other's compositions until both of us were done. For the current project, we each have two different issues of National Geographic from which to source our collage elements. For this project, we are producing a diptych (one panel for each issue, with no overlap). The photos below are some of the images from the issues of National Geographic. I think I will post the final product in a subsequent post)...