Laura Tringali Holmes: art and inspiration

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Don't Get Jittery On Me--Part 9, or "This Deed Is Almost Done"

When last we left off in the construction of this altered book, we were inventing a future. Reinvention is such a hot topic these days. People molt identities like snakeskins and then write books and magazine articles about how you can and should do it, too. Oh, were it that easy!

But it is not. Our childhood patterns are insidious, the big green goo of them sliming into any unoccupied corner of our brains, not to mention our hearts. Think ectoplasm. Think Ghostbusters.

And then think challenges. And how our pasts do not have to be predictors of our futures...if we have the resolve and, more important, as a first step, if we are able to say to ourselves and anybody else who will listen " I don't want to be like that." In breaking the cycle, there can be the salvation. Take it from me or, better yet, find it out for yourself.

And here is the penultimate segment in how the long story of "Don't Get Jittery On Me," my altered book, my sort-of-autobiography, unfolds...as usual, presented in pictures. Augmented, as you have come to expect from me by now, with lengthy captions.

I hope to wrap this series up in 10 entries, this being the 9th. If, dear reader, you are completely lost, the previous blog entry is in the October archive list.

For a quick memory refreshment, we left off here:

Birdproofing mesh on the left reveals, when opened, a trio of raucous crows, a
talking stick, a leaping little girl, and some upstretched arms
indicating that all may (potentially) not be lost.

The next spread shows us people fleeing the abyss on the left under the
watchful eye of One Big Bird. Of course there is clarifying text.
At right, under the purple netting, are additional plot details, including my favorite
line ever: "Had my hair not been so firmly painted on my head, it would
have stood on end." The girl in the porthole is from an old Look magazine.

PURPLE NETTING? May I interject my feelings about using "mixed media" with traditional collage here? No? I can feel the purists' shudders.... Okay, a topic for another time....

When you flip the page you get more explanatory text and yet another porthole.
Now our girl's head is atop a bird. I suppose that's an editorial comment. At
left you see a card from a Boy Scout playing deck and a game spinner. The
broken key at the bottom of the bird at right is actually a handle.

When you lift it, you've got a score! The book from which this illustration
was taken couldn't be farther from the sporting world. But who could resist
the triumph in the posture? Things are starting to look up around here.

I think we may just have stumbled upon a turning point.

A long time ago, I wrote a blog about incorporating the garish foil
vintage greeting card, which appears on the right of this spread, in my
altered book. It turned out to be a pretty seamless entry, and provided a
springboard for editorial ruminations. Note the closed porthole
with suggestions of "ok" and, "how." I like
incorporating hints rather than clobbering people over their heads.

The thing to notice here is how, when you flip the page (and the garish greeting
card) onto the next spread, the stems of the glasses just appear. Collage is magic.
I can say no more. At right, I sistered in a page from the original book, which I had
removed initially as part of the book prep process, because it provides editorial
continuity and because, although I don't really believe in such things,
I kind of like being a Scorpio.

And then, on the next spread, we have the lawn chairs. A foreshadowing of
repose? Our heroine is at least on the same page with those chairs. It's
been a long time coming, but she'll get to repose, I know.

Until next time. Thanks so much for listening.

The last in the series, Part 10, finally, whew, may be found here: http://lauratringaliholmes.blogspot.com/2013/11/dont-get-jittery-on-me-part-10-or.html

Sunday, August 4, 2013

The Art of Target Practice

UPDATE: The Target Practice Project now has its very own blog, where the work of participating artists will be featured. You can follow along here: http://thetargetpracticeproject.blogspot.com.

While other kids were out doing social pre-teen things, I was being dragged around an archery trail or instructed how to man a fishing rod stuffed into a sand spike. Such is the life of a daughter of a sportsman. Of course there were other things I would much rather have been doing, but those things didn't matter and certainly nobody ever asked me about them. And I had learned at a much younger age not even to bring them up. This is because a parent afflicted with narcissism doesn't mirror back the child to the child as is desirable and normal, so what the child wants or needs simply doesn't matter. No, to a narcissistic parent, the child IS the mirror, reflecting back the parent's own issues and interests, in this case, bows and arrows, guns, fishing and camping gear, and boats.

Me in impossible shoes at the archery range at Ferry Point Park, Bronx, New York

My father left behind all this stuff when he passed away, at 90, in June of this year, but it was the tall stack of 1960s archery targets from Sears Roebuck, hidden behind some ancient fish coolers in the garage, that got my attention. As a collagist, I am always on the lookout for old paper with interesting patterns. Still, I didn't grab the targets right away. Instead, over the next several weeks I entered into a polite hands-off relationship with them, where I would nod in their direction as I entered and exited my father's house to perform my clean-out chores. Under self-scrutiny, I see that my relationship to the targets is not unlike the adult relationship I had with my father, especially in respect to my artwork, which he never once asked to see or even noticed on the walls of my home. Just as my pre-teen essence was irrelevant to my father, so was my adult essence. My father died without ever acknowledging even a single product of my heart, spirit, or hand.

Archery targets, vintage 1960s, from Sears, Roebuck & Co.

But now I had these targets, and something grand in me wanted to make the two divergent threads—one of my artwork, one of my father—intertwine. You could say that I saw redemption in the crosshairs. Time was offering me an opportunity to create a congruence that had not existed in my life, and so I pulled back the metaphorical bow string and shot the arrow. I snapped some photos of the pile of targets, posted them on Facebook, and put out a call to my artist friends both here in the States and internationally. Who wanted to collage some targets? I started a group on Facebook, called “Target Practice,” where people could post their work. Within a few days I had mailed out almost 150 targets. Finished target collages have already started to roll back in. It is amazing what artists are doing with them.

Targets on their way out the door

These aren't memorials to the past, just enchantment in the present. This gives me comfort and great hope.

You can link to the Facebook group here, https://www.facebook.com/groups/161991817319872/ but for now here's a look at some of the great work that's already been posted. Stay tuned for an update as more work arrives.