Today I made this collage. It measures 18 inches tall by 12 inches wide, much bigger than I usually or comfortably attempt. I call this collage "Working Man."
Too much, not enough. And, worse yet, the work, as it spread out over the two halves of the whole, lacked succinct meaning. And I am a stickler in my work for succinct meaning. So something had to give, and it turned out to be half a collage.
I felt a lot better after I gathered all the hands and all the birds on the same page, although I did lose a bird in the process. I gave the working man the brain waves that he needed. As for those pink tissue paper roses at top left? My working man thought it was going to be a rose garden. But little did he know....
Little do any of us know. Since this was originally intended to be my second contribution to San Francisco artist and writer Carl Heyward's Knee(jerk) Fragmentation Project, he's not getting a full collage. Little did he know! But I'm pretty sure Carl would agree that it's not the end of the world when the end product winds up not having a whole lot to do with the goal.
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Carl Heyward's Knee(Jerk) Fragmentation Project is an international mail-art endeavor involving an impressive number of artists. Participants make large pieces of art and then chop them into post-card-size pieces for a one-for-one exchange with the other group members. My previous foray into large work was as crazy-making as this one. I blogged about it here: http://lauratringaliholmes.blogspot.com/2012/03/un-jerking-reaction-of-knee.html
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I am particularly fond of this detail. I dare say you will notice the bead-biting lady in the body of the bird. I would have more in common with this lady by the end of this project that I would have imagined possible when first I collaged these pieces together.
That's because this piece started out at twice its current size (18 inches tall by 24 inches wide), but I wound up cannibalizing the second half of the work to complete this half, destroying the second half in the process.
Here's where the second half was going before I did the big rip-up.
Too much, not enough. And, worse yet, the work, as it spread out over the two halves of the whole, lacked succinct meaning. And I am a stickler in my work for succinct meaning. So something had to give, and it turned out to be half a collage.
I felt a lot better after I gathered all the hands and all the birds on the same page, although I did lose a bird in the process. I gave the working man the brain waves that he needed. As for those pink tissue paper roses at top left? My working man thought it was going to be a rose garden. But little did he know....
Little do any of us know. Since this was originally intended to be my second contribution to San Francisco artist and writer Carl Heyward's Knee(jerk) Fragmentation Project, he's not getting a full collage. Little did he know! But I'm pretty sure Carl would agree that it's not the end of the world when the end product winds up not having a whole lot to do with the goal.
---
Carl Heyward's Knee(Jerk) Fragmentation Project is an international mail-art endeavor involving an impressive number of artists. Participants make large pieces of art and then chop them into post-card-size pieces for a one-for-one exchange with the other group members. My previous foray into large work was as crazy-making as this one. I blogged about it here: http://lauratringaliholmes.blogspot.com/2012/03/un-jerking-reaction-of-knee.html
4 comments:
great piece and so glad you showed a close up of the bird... well done!
glad you shared your process and how it moved along...I've been working on a small piece that I was unhappy with...after I cut it in half, I felt so much better!
its been fun to see what you've been doing with this collaboration...
Thank you, Caterina! I try to learn something from everything that goes in, shall we say, an "unexpected" direction!
So, Amy, you're a cutup, too! That's good to know...it's quite daunting to pick up those scissors but it feels so awfully good to push forward something that simply isn't working. True satisfaction!
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