Letting It Rip

It was only this past May that I let myself rip. Literally.
I owe this movement forward to a series of conversations with a painter who also works in the Rare Book Room of The Strand in New York City.

This is a picture of The Strand, taken in May. The Strand has 18 miles of books and is located at the corner of 12^th and Broadway in New York City.

Here is my favorite shelf in The Strand. In the Rare Book Room, there is a section just for well-worn books, called Breakers because...well...the books are broken.

And here is my purchase from that day, an 1837 copy of Journal des Demoiselles.

You can see that the book comes with pull-out patterns. There are many of them interspersed throughout the book.

With a book as special to me as this one, prior to May of this year I would have waited for a rainy day, donned my barge-mule hat, and tediously scanned the texts and images that I could see myself using in future works of collage. Out of respect for old books, for the sake of preservation but also as a charm against messups--to put it bluntly, scanner as garlic-bulb necklace.

Enter my painter friend and the aforementioned conversations.

And now I rip.

Here are some altered playing cards in the prep stage, using text snips from Journal des Demoiselles, coated with a wash or two of raw sienna glaze.

I might rip small, but it's a big deal for me. Even though most of the text will probably be covered up as the collages are completed, I will know that the original bits and pieces are under there, and that history goes forward.

Here's a finished altered playing card using Journal des Demoiselles text. The check used at the bottom of the card is also from the original--it would seem that nothing of the paper persuasion is safe from me now.

"Dog Lover," using image transfer from a photo courtesy of the collection of Mrs. Inman

Memento Vitae

This is the last installment of the story of the work I did on Margaret Orr's collaged background. (Margaret's work may be found here: http://hogret.deviantart.com) The progress had some interesting twists and turns—experimenting with a brand new transfer material, for example, and then stumbling upon the works of Mexico City “mechanic artist” Betsabee Romero in a local museum shortly thereafter. In a way, Betsabee Romero joined Margaret and me as a collaborator on this piece, albeit unwittingly. Influence as Collaboration is an interesting idea, and one I want to think more about. But back to this piece. My original idea in working on this collage was to comment on the role of mass media in contemporary society. Somewhere back in my (admittedly short) list of blogs, I talked about intentional design and how it helps me with focus. I wonder if I would have responded as I did to the Romero work if I hadn't had the concept of this piece implanted in my mind during the initial stages of design. I don't think so. I think I just might have missed the satisfying “ping” of puzzle pieces falling into place. And so the learning process continues.

My botched attempt at image transfer on the collaged background

Anyway, the above photo shows where I left off a couple of blogs ago, a good example of Image Transfer Gone Bad. No fault of the transfer material (Lesley Riley's TAP), I hasten to add, just what happens when one fails to practice first on scrap.

Betsabee Romero's televisions with etched screens and video

And the installation shown above, Celosias Interiores (Interior Lattice Windows), is what I saw at the Betsabee Romero exhibit at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, NY, shortly after beginning work on the piece.

.A small acetate transparency over the family members reiterates the text. Later on I swapped it out for a transparency of the Magic Message.

When I resumed work on the piece, it became the most natural thing in the world to insert the photo of the Blank-Staring-People into the frame that I had inadvertently created while attempting the image transfer.

. The mica is the brown sheet material...you can see it best overlapping the shoulder of the boy.

Influenced as I was by the television installation at the museum, I started to glue bits of sheet mica around the heads of the family members. The background began to take on aspects of a telvision screen, and the mica cracks were just perfect for what I was and am feeling about television. It's really cool, and the photo doesn't do the mica justice.

I liked where this was going, but there was still work to be done. Two things bothered me. The brown splotches from the original background, which I had liked at first, now looked haphazard. I had covered up a few of the splotches so they had lost their original impact and now seemed to me to be just “there.” Also, the blue scissor tape on the left and bottom of the background had gotten lost. It didn't relate to anything else in the collage. My eye kept sticking in these places. I needed round and I needed blue.

The finished piece, entitled Blank Stares

Flash onto the televisions of my childhood. Rabbit ear antennas! I hauled out an old Popular Science Monthly magazine (1939) to search for something that I could convert into an antenna base. I found it, snipped it, and then discovered that a V from a headline would do very well for the rabbit ears.

As a last touch, from the same magazine, I cut up some blue borders and made them into legs for the television. I went skinny with the legs because I wanted the tension of my newly constructed television looking like it could come crashing down at any moment. And I liked the way the skinny legs framed the extra little message at the bottom about “good health.” That was a bonus that I didn't see until the very end.

I guess this tells you something about how I view mass media. Thanks for listening.

Such Things As Coincidences

If you've been following along with my design ruminations, you'll know that I've been thinking about the effects of mass media on people and culture, and about how to express my thoughts on this concept visually in a collaborative collage piece.

A few days ago, on a jaunt to the Neuberger Museum of Art, in Purchase, NY, I stumbled upon the work of self-described “mechanic artist” Betsabee Romero, and was drawn immediately to this installation. Coincidence? Who knows. I was thrilled to find this, though, given where I am in my own work.

Celosias Interiores (Interior Lattice Windows)

Televisions with etched screens and video

The installation was accompanied by this writing by the artist:

Ellos No Se Ven (They Do Not See Us)

 Tattered television screens

With symbolic lattice

To sift, to descry, to intertwine mass images,

In order to try to reconstruct some

One which may have some truth

You cannot see the television

It goes in the home without having to present any documentation

But eyesight also has its own shields

Culture like a defensive spider

Weaves its own web

It only allows its own prey

Or whatever is left of it to penetrate.

An image of what is real

Behind the lattice they do not see us

We are not the object of the gaze

Of those who oversee the gaze of the world.

According to the gallery statement, Betsabee Romero, one of Mexico's leading artists, “explores the tensions between local traditions and industrialized societies dominated by speed, mass production, and emigration.” Lots of cool cars and car parts in this show. As Romero stated in a placard at the gallery: “The car is by far the object that attracts the greatest aesthetic attention among people of all ages and social classes.” Not going to argue with that.

Here are a few highlights:

Ciudades que se van (Moving Cities), a series of four 60-foot-long tire prints on textiles that hang from the ceiling. The tires were carved with traditional symbolic shapes. Like rolling rubber stamps, back in Mexico the tires were used to imprint streets, towels, and T-shirts.

De Reojo (View from the Corner of my Eye), etched rearview mirrors, gold leaf, video (with sound, running on the wall that you can't see in my photo). Being in this room was intoxicating. The light, the reflections, the sound....

Cuerpos vestidos (Dressed Bodies), shows "the intimate union of two automobiles covered with a burqua.” In her artist statement, Romero talks about anonymous copulation, bodies merging without real connection, in a culture that drives its members fast and faster.

One Hot Mess

When last we spoke, I had glazed Margaret's background and had selected the focal image. Here they are together.

Collage background by Margaret Orr, photo from the collection of Mrs. Inman.

The next step was to begin to integrate the two pieces. How could I express the concept I had developed in my last blog? You might recall that I had chosen to investigate the power of media in our belief systems, how and whether it causes magical thinking, and what that thinking might look like when expressed visually.

The full name of this stuff is Lesley Riley's TAP. It has serious potential, but is rather costly. (That brown stuff you see is a silicon sheet for protection against the heat.) I got my TAP from a going-out-of-business internet craft company on a deep discount. Pays to shop.

And then, because it was the hottest and most humid day of the year, and my studio is an upper loft space with two skylights and little air circulation, I reached for my iron and a material I had never worked with before: Transfer Artist's Paper. I read the directions. Simple enough. Print your image on the paper and iron it down. Ha! Being of a fine woodwoorking background, I have in my time repeated “measure twice, cut once” and “try it on scrap first” as a mantra. But we all have lapses no?

I was going for a frame-within-a frame look here, kind of a television within a television. This was not what I had envisioned, to say the least.

And this is what happens when you don't practice on scrap first. You get one hot mess. Luckily for me, I had a bunch of prepped canvases, boards, and other backgrounds lying around, so I was able to continue my ironing frenzy well into the evening. With varying degrees of success. I mean, who wouldn't want to take advantage of the hottest, most humid day of the year to run one's iron at full heat?

As for this piece, not to worry. Lemonade will be forthcoming, one hopes.

On Intentional Design

Collage background by Margaret Orr (http://hogret.deviantart.com)

In my last blog post, I rotated a collaged background through all four orientations to find the one I liked the best. That's it, shown above.

Collaged background with yellow ochre glaze

To unify the diverse elements, I gave the background a couple of thin washes of glaze. I like how it turned out. I used yellow ochre glaze because not only did I want to warm up Margaret's umber splotches, I wanted to highlight the tones of the various papers, and I know yellow ochre will do that. I sing the praises of yellow ochre glaze.

While working with the glaze, my imagination was exploring different concepts for the piece, as inspired by the background paper and color. The thing about collage is that it is inclusive of virtually all choices, and in my shop I have collections chock-full of choices. Depending on the day, all this choice can be liberating or frustrating. Mostly it's frustrating, and I find that by working “intentionally” (as opposed to “intuitively”), I can give myself both the creative direction I need and the potential to maximize the development of my ideas.

Here's how it works in practice. Consider the process of selecting an old photograph for a focal image to place atop this background. I've already noted in my last blog that I wanted to feature that bit of text on the right about the “power of the magic of believing.” While the message of this text could easily lead one to think of cheery birds and butterflies, there is another direction here begging to be explored.

Girl with Coral Beads, collection of Art-e-ology

When searching through stock photos for images that might be complementary to the second interpretation, I came up with pictures like this.

Blank-Staring Family, collection of Mrs. Inman

And this.

Article by Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone magazine, July 7-21, 2011

And then, as a sort of test drive, I snipped around the image and put it down on a magazine article that I happened to be reading...and isn't it coincidental that the colors in the magazine drawing and the colors in Margaret's background are similar? By George, I've got it! My vote is now officially cast for the family with the blank stares. As I attempt to incorporate this photo into the collage, here's the concept I'll be keeping in mind: the power of media in our belief systems, how and whether it causes magical thinking, and what that thinking might look like. Stay tuned...!

One Background Four Ways

A collage background arrived in the mail yesterday. For collaboration. From South Africa. From my good friend Margaret. You can view her extraordinary collage/mixed media/jewelry work here:  http://hogret.deviantart.com . I like Margaret's background because it is vibrant in all four views. But how to pick the view that's right for me?

Background View #1

View #1. Because of its contrast with the other colors, that green stripe is dynamic. In this view, because it dominates the area just below center, it would most likely be covered up eventually with whatever the focal point turns out to be. That would make me sad. But I like that old magazine page (1953) at the top. The brown splotches at the bottom ground the composition and the white dots are interesting elements. I don't particularly like the location of the scissor tape framing, but this is definitely a workable view. Is it just me, though, or does this orientation look too predictable? I am not finding wit here, and I do so enjoy wit!

Background View #2

View #2. The descent of the brown splotches from the top edge is, frankly, depressing, especially with the contrasting lightness of the white dots, which remind me of falling snow. There's a lot of movement here, but it's a bad sort of movement for me. It feels claustrophopic, especially since the sharp angles and paper tape border are pushing my eye to the lower left-hand corner. Since, according to Margaret, most people approach a piece of art from the upper right hand corner, this relentless drag of my eye to the bottom could be an issue. Fighting the tension of this movement could overtake my meaning and dictate my content. I like to be in control of my content. #2 is officially off the table.

Background View #3

View #3. Darn! This view also has the falling brown splotches contrasted with the sparkly snow dots. However, the scissor tape is more amiably positioned at the left side of the canvas and the green strip is now above the centerline, which I like. Not crazy about the text being upside-down at the bottom because it is lost there. I know already that I want to incorporate this text into my content, but its position here would make that a stretch. Overall, I find a jarring randomness in this view—the horizontal slashes of paper, the descending splotches and dots. Unless I wanted to make an anxious piece, where a background like this would reinforce and energize my foreground, this would just get in the way. Of course I could slop on paint to neutralize the composition, but I would rather listen to the paper. http://lauratringaliholmes.blogspot.com/2011/06/listening-to-paper.html

Background View #4

View # 4. Of all the orientations, this one seems to naturally align itself into thirds, at least to my eye. This is a good thing, proportionally. The scissor tape is holding the left and bottom edges, another good thing. The brown splotches are back to being design elements rather than harbingers of doom. The white dots are back to being dots, not snow. In this view, the composition appears to be neutralizing itself. If I work carefully, I can preserve some of that delicious green at the top, I think. And I know I can keep the text snip visible in the finished piece. Can you tell I'm getting excitied about getting to work on this? View #4 it is!

But wait! First things first! What orientation would you pick?

Stay tuned for next steps.

Birds Themselves

Birds Themselves, mixed media on canvas, 2011

Birds themselves are a joy to feed, especially at this time of year when all the youngsters line up on the deck rail to be beak-fed by their parents. Oh, the drama! We call it Bird TV. This year we've had an abundant and hungry fledge class of downy and red belly woodpeckers, finches (cardinals, gold, house, and purple), blue jays, grackles, sparrows (chipping, house, European), and starlings. No matter the type of bird, when the babies open their beaks for feeding, the red color that is revealed makes a perfect target for mama or papa to drop in suet or seed. We haven't seen chickadee, nuthatch, rose-breasted grosbeak, or tufted titmouse fledglings yet even though we think we have breeding pairs of all of these.

There is always tomorrow.

When you feed birds year-round, you earn a front-row seat at the evolution theater. For example, last year one of our blue jays, who we named Darwin, learned to feed upside down at our suet house—this is something that birds other than woodpeckers don't usually like to do. But this year's crop of jay babies all seem to have a natural inclination for and grace in upside-down feeding. Could these be Darwin's children? Have we witnessed an evolutionary stride? All speculation here, no science, but it's fun to watch and wonder.

Droll Yankee small cylinder feeder with homemade baffle and squirrel,
who is clearly not baffled, 2010

While birds themselves are a joy, excluding squirrels is a daily challenge. I made the pretzel-jug baffle in 2010 after Beau Regard, a particularly agile rodent, figured out that he could leap from the deck rail to the feeder perch (he would make it every fourth try or so), then corkscrew himself up into the jug so that his back feet could grasp the interior wire feeder hanger. His little paws could then push mounds of seed into his cheeks.

Squirrel Buster (tm) feeder with homemade rodent
shield, 2011

This year several of our squirrels discovered that by balancing their bellies on the deck rail, they could trick the weight-sensitive spring ring on our Squirrel Buster feeder and free their paws to stuff their faces. I've plugged the front-facing ports of the feeder with aluminum foil, a tin-can cover, and packing tape. The birds eat at the two ports that remain open at the back of the feeder. For now this appears to be working.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.