AnitaNH: Collage & Life

More! More! More! More!

2012-01-26T10:53:00.010-05:00

I was blown away this morning by the discovery of these two Vimeo videos about the creation of a logo for More4, the British digital television channel. The design consists of a beautiful and colorful moving array of right isosceles triangles.

The second video documents how the effect was produced. This must have been a budget-breaker.

What an amazing moving street sign I could create for Anita's Beads if I could figure out how to adapt this on a smaller scale. Thinking larger, I could apply it to the entire front peak of my barn. Now that would really stop traffic!

Bravo, ManvsMachine!

Winter of the Mind: The Cornell-Nathan Connection

2012-01-25T10:33:00.015-05:00

I've just started reading the marvelous book by Dore Ashton about collage/assemblage artist Joseph Cornell titled A Joseph Cornell Album (NY: Da Capo Press, 1974). It is a portrait of an authentic and original American eccentric with a poetic soul longing for the past, to paraphrase from the Foreward.

From it I have learned about a short novel written by Robert Nathan (1894-1985): Portrait of Jenny (1940). It was made into a film in 1949, and when the book was republished by Tachyon Publications in 1998, Ray Bradbury wrote: "Welcome back, Portrait of Jennie. It touched and frightened me when I was twenty-four. Now, once more, it touches and frightens."

Cornell greatly admired Nathan's supernatural novel and repeatedly referred friends to it. It is a book saturated with the experience of deja vu, writes Ashton. It is also explicitly an avowal of discomfort in the present.

"There is another kind of suffering for the artist which is worse than anything a winter, or poverty, can do; it is more like a winter of the mind, in which the life of his genius, the living sap of his work, seems frozen and motionless, caught--perhaps forever--in a season of death, and who knows if spring will ever come again to set it free?" (Robert Nathan)

Cornell shared Nathan's romanticism and longing for the safety of other times. The possibility of mystery in the universe is another common theme reflected in Cornell's work.

"One must sometimes believe what one cannot understand. That is the method of the scientist as well as the mystic; faced with a universe which must be endless and infinite, he accepts it, although he cannot really imagine it." (Robert Nathan)

Here are links to a number of interpretations, musical and otherwise, of Nathan's novel. I like to think Cornell would have enjoyed these:

Jennifer Jones: A Mozartian "Portrait of Jenny"

Portrait of Jenny Trailer

Portrait of Jenny {a tribute }

Jennie - Nobody knows

Keswick - A Portrait of Jenny

Nat King Cole - A Portrait of Jenny

George Benson - A Portrait of Jenny

Joe Lovano - Portrait of Jenny

How watching these clips makes me feel is best expressed by a German word I learned from reading Ashton: "sehnsucht" or, a longing for other times. This last link is off-topic, but it embodies the longing:

Charlie Parker - Autumn in New York

“I suppose most artists go through something of the sort; sooner or later it is no longer enough for them just to live —to paint, and have enough, or nearly enough, to eat. Sooner or later God asks His question: are you for me, or against me? And the artist must have some answer, or feel his heart break for what he cannot say.” (Robert Nathan)

My First 15 Spoonflower Sample Swatches

2012-01-08T10:25:00.009-05:00

My first swatch samples have arrived from Spoonflower. First off, what an amazing turn around! I ordered the sampler Monday night, it was printed and shipped on Wednesday, and I received it in the mail on Saturday afternoon.

I am also very pleased by the sharpness of the images. The files are all .tif format, 600 pixels/inch, sized around 3725 x 3725 pixels resulting in 39.7 MB which is close to their 40MB size limit. There is slight fuzziness in some views on the Spoonflower site, but the focus on the fabric itself is dead-on perfect!

I smoothed the piece of fabric out on my work table under an Ott light, and proceeded to cut around each individual design with pinking shears.

The individual 8x8 inch swatches are separated by a white unprinted margin marked with blue guidelines and numbers that Spoonflower assigns for identification purposes.

Seven of the swatches could not be improved upon and are now available for purchase at my Spoonflower shop. The rest will be re-worked for various reasons. My unexpected favorite has got to be Impossible Dream in large (top photo) and small:

Three in my Perfect Square Collection also made the cut including Blue Dorje:

and another pleasant surprise, Orange Dorje:

Stay tuned for some Orange Dorje companion fabric! This next one needs to be re-worked because a slight pencil line is visible:

I either need to play it up more or eliminate it entirely. Back to the drawing board!

Ripple No. 1 (Log Cabin Collection)

2012-01-03T21:31:00.005-05:00

Ripple No. 1 (Log Cabin Collection) in orange. Coming soon to Spoonflower.

Fabric Design - Filter Tangent

2012-01-03T12:59:00.016-05:00

Yesterday I spent some time exploring the Filters available in Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0. I used a scan of a log cabin design that I created by pasting together little squares of fabric. I repeated and rotated the image to form a block

to which I applied various Filters at random. The examples below illustrate application of the Artistic filter called Cutout. (I've used this one before on my Perfect Square design.) Different results can be achieved through the manipulation of three variables: levels, edge simplicity, and edge fidelity.

Below is an example of another Artistic filter called Plastic Wrap:

And this next one is Posterization:

I've lost track of how I achieved the last one, but here are a few more surface treatments I can still identify:

Then there are applications which dramatically distort the image, affecting more than just the surface character of the design

like Ripple (above) or Pinch (below). The possibilities are endless!

The Pleasures of Pattern Design

2012-01-02T13:24:00.004-05:00

Here are a few books off my reading pile that I want to share with you. William Justema's The Pleasures of Pattern (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1982) has been a source of inspiration for a long time. Newer additions to my design library include Lesley Jackson's Twentieth-Century Pattern Design; Textile & Wallpaper Pioneers (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002)

and Digital Textile Design by Melanie Bowles and Ceri Isaac (London: Lawrence King Publishing Ltd., 2009).

This last book brings textile design into the digital age with tutorials on the use of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. So far I have not felt a need for Illustrator. There is still so much for me to learn about Photoshop!

Diffuse Glow

2012-01-02T12:12:00.006-05:00

Today I'm working towards completing a set of 15 designs so I can proof my Spoonflower fabrics. I'm having so much fun I can't believe it. This example started by cleaning the sort pile on the dryer. I had a little scrap of color chips coated in acrylic medium that was torn from one of my notebooks. It was too cute to throw away so I put it on the scanner and look what happened:

Once the basic unit above was repeated, I decided that I didn't like the brown chip so I changed it to gray. Then I jazzed it up a little with one of my favorite Photopshop devices, the Spiral Brush:

Here's more of it repeated smaller:

The finishing touch was to apply something called "Diffuse Glow" which toned the thing down. I like the softer look as well as the "tea-washed" background color.

Beyond Perfect

2012-01-01T14:17:00.011-05:00

Initially I was excited by Perfect Square (Yellow) No. 1 pictured above because it was my first application of "Cutout" in Photoshop. You can see how the character of the original drawing was transformed by enlarging the example below:

After discovering how nicely Perfect Square (Yellow) No.2 reacted when half-brick repeated, I decided that my first version, application of "Cutout" not withstanding, was boring and set out to improve on it. The attempt to retrofit the original design became a lesson in how not to make a successful pattern, and demonstrated how much I still have to learn to become truly proficient in photoshop.

I have since decided that the success of Perfect Square (Yellow) No.2 is due, to a large extent, to its asymmetrical nature. But I made the choice to mess about with No. 1 by attacking it at the center:

Sensing a problem, I carried the project forward by partially obscuring the big misty blue blob in the center and repeated like so:

I was stuck. So I decided to invert the colors in an attempt to achieve novelty. (If you've seen my Spoonflower shop banner you will realize I have traveled this road before! )

At this point I had completely worked myself into the proverbial corner. My one last resort to save the project was to bump up the orange:

The more I consider this exercise of pattern design for fabric, the more I realize how exponentially explosive the possibilities can become. I have a whole Tumblr full of images to play around with, and I can cull through my digital collage posts on this site for more inspiration. Plus my collage activities now have a new focus.

New Year Inspiration: The Perfect Square

2012-01-01T13:01:00.008-05:00

The new year has begun with a satisfying new tangent for me: fabric design at Spoonflower. Pattern has obsessed me off and on throughout my life. I dabbled in batik, silk screening and quilting in the 80's before getting involved with beads, jewelry making, and collage. Now the combination of design manipulation in Photoshop with the print-on-demand capabilities of Spoonflower is making me fall in love with pattern all over again.

There are a few publicly viewable designs in my Spoonflower shop but you need to click on designs not for sale to view them. Once I get a dozen or so uploaded that please me I will order swatches to proof them and then make them available to the public. The one called Perfect Square (Yellow) No. 2 is my favorite so far.

It started last June as a marker drawing which is shown above. I scanned it into photoshop where I created an eight-inch square design by repeating the graphic in two sizes on a gridded yellow background.

The options for layout in Spoonflower include basic repeat, half-drop,

half-brick,

and mirrored. I like the half-brick repeat the best so that is what I have specified to be printed on Spoonflower.

AnitaNH Designs at Spoonflower

2011-12-29T21:27:00.011-05:00

I have just opened a Spoonflower fabric shop! I have been talking about using my drawings as fabric designs for a while and I finally got the ball rolling. I have added a couple of designs just to see how the system works. I have to order a swatch of each of the designs to proof them before they can be offered for sale. 15 designs printed at once are much more cost effective than one at a time so I need to work up more designs. You can check my progress here:

Old Gold Visits New Mexico

2011-12-16T14:09:00.008-05:00

I've recently discovered the Prelinger Archives, now a new Reference Link in the sidebar, and I blogged about it on The Temporary Blog yesterday. I've been browsing their Subject Heading list every time I get a spare moment. It's a fascinating collection of video material.

I just found an interesting one called Pueblo Heritage (1950) presented by the P. Lorillard Company, the manufacturer of Old Gold Cigarettes:

In gratitude to the people who gave tobacco to the world, the P. Lorillard Company presents this film, one in a series on the American Indian, as a public service.

Now I'll admit to enjoying the images of the Zuni and Acoma pottery, as well as the marvelous sterling silver jewelry. But the turquoise and silver covered wagon (at 07:08) containing Old Gold cigarettes is a serious Madison Avenue plug.

I was reminded of their advertisement in a 1951 Saturday Evening Post which I had written about here in an earlier post. The incredible tag line reads: No medical war whoops from Old Gold... We're tobacco men... not medicine men! Smoke OLD GOLD for a TREAT instead of a TREATMENT!

I even found a copy on Ebay going for $10.99.

Disordered Interior Geometries

2011-12-13T11:41:00.008-05:00

The photography of Francesca Woodman (1958-1981) is on display at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art. I remember including some black and white images of her work in a simultaneous slide show titled "Symbolist Photography" that I produced in the late 80's for a Photo Archives course I was taking at Simmons GSLIS. I have not given much thought to her work since, until reading this morning's post at Cafe Selavy.

Her work is as engaging as her life was tragic. Some belittle her art ( John Henshall for the New Statesman -- this one is saddening right down to the comments ) while others have contributed in a more positive way to a meaningful understanding of it. Peter Davison, poetry editor for the Atlantic, suggests: "Francesca Woodman's work presents femaleness without satire or an agenda," in his insightful article Girl, Seeming to Disappear.

The Long Exposure of Francesca Woodman by Elizabeth Gumport on the New York Review of Books blog (which makes mention of Woodman's use of Surrealist motifs) was another good find, as were the selections of 21 images posted on this blog and 13 more on this tumblr. But what finally convinced me to write about Francesca Woodman today was the discovery, via Gumport's article, of the photographer's altered book, published in 1980, titled "Some Disordered Interior Geometries."

I didn't find a copy of the book on Amazon, nor was one available through any of the other used book sellers that I frequent. However, I discovered Alison Dunhill's article "Dialogues with Diagrams: Francesca Woodman's Book, Some Disordered Interior Geometries" for Rebus, an online journal of art history and theory (Issue 2, Autumn 2008, .pdf file here). It is illustrated with several two-page spreads in addition to an image of the altered cover of the Italian geometry text, Esercizi Graduati di Geometria, which forms the base for Woodman's photos and annotations. According to Dunhill, this was one of five photographic books that Woodman created using a found object in this manner.

New Worlds of Surrealism

2011-12-02T14:37:00.002-05:00

I saw the advertisement in Art News this month for the show titled Surrealism: New Worlds at the Weinstein Gallery in San Francisco. It is running December 10, 2011 to January 28, 2012. I'm particularly fond of this fantastic collage painting by Victor Brauner.

The roster of artists also includes: William Baziotes, Alexander Calder, Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dali, Oscar Dominguez, Enrico Donati, Marcel Duchamp, Jimmy Ernst, Max Ernst, Leonor Fini, David Hare, Marcel Jean, Gerome Kamrowski, Andre Mason, Roberto Matta, Joan Miro, Gordon Onslow Ford, Wolfgang Paalen, Hurt Seligmann, Stella Snead, and Yves Tanguy.

I also like this one by Gerome Kamrowski.

Patti Smith: An Illuminated Apprentice

2011-11-04T09:41:00.005-04:00

While compiling my fourth Play List on The Temporary Blog last night I re-discovered the music of Patti Smith. This seems fitting as I have recently read her book, Just Kids, which was recommended to me last spring by Mrs. Neutron.

Funny how you can come to appreciate things later in life that you blithley overlooked at a younger age. Check out this 1978 interview with Tom Snyder where Patti says: "I'm more materialistic about my soul than I am about objects."

Until the End of the World never made the list, but it should have.

Animation & Cool Photosets

2011-11-02T06:11:00.006-04:00

I found a nice example of vintage animation via the blog Stickers and Stuff. Titled Magic Highway USA, it is amazing to see how creative the predictions were. The idea of a road surface that would melt snow and evaporate rain would be a great alternative to the frost heaves and snow banks that are in my immediate future!

I just added the photostream (found via Letterology) of Piet Schreuders to my Flickr list. Some amazing images there, including the one displayed at the top of this post.

There is nothing of note happening collage-wise as my entire existence has been swallowed up by The Roof, but I will leave you with these: Howlin' Wolf performing Dust My Broom at the 1966 Newport Jazz Festival, Walt Disney's Oscar winning history of music titled Toot Whistle, Plunk And Boom and an animation set to Cab Calloway's Saint James Infirmary.

Artists of the Month

2011-10-12T08:56:00.004-04:00

My friend Sharon Lee and I have a show this month at the Gafney Library in Sanbornville, New Hampshire. We're having a reception to meet the artists on Thursday October 20th from 5:00 to 7:00 pm so stop in and say hello if you get a chance.

Art Group leader Peter Abate curated the show and did a fantastic job. I am always amazed to see my work hanging outside of my crowded little gallery. And it displays well with Sharon's work, which is frequently composed on a grid similar to mine.

More information on The Art Group blog.

The Total Woman Show

2011-10-11T10:26:00.006-04:00

Here I am with Cheryl Webb Scott and her wonderful crew on the set of The Total Woman show last week. You can see a bit of my collage titled "Do Not Adjust" in the background. I was interviewed about my collage art for a cable television segment and I'm looking forward to seeing the episode which I hope to share with you once I receive a copy on DVD.

Blanche No. 4

2011-09-28T13:36:00.006-04:00

I've been working on adding collages to my Tumblr site. It all started with putting some links on my latest blog, Future Dead Artist, which showcases my sketchbook drawings. I created a new banner for FDA, as well as little image links to Quilts, Crosses and Collages. I discovered that I only had a few of my collage images up so today I am working to remedy that situation.

My favorite has got to be the Blanch series. Pictured above is Blanche Becomes Alanis (Blanche No. 4) which was a small study done for Blanche Big or The Inspiration (Blanche No. 6) my largest collage to date at 30x39 inches.

I was listening to Alanis Morissette a lot at the time I made No. 4. (Also love this one.)

I've Got A Secret

2011-09-25T17:31:00.007-04:00

I'm going to confess that there is something that I have been holding back. I've been hesitating to go public with my secret, although I have let the cat out of the bag to a few of you who have visited Anita's Beads this month.

I'm going to be interviewed about my collage work on television.

The interview will be broadcast on a cable TV show out of Massachusetts called The Total Woman Show. It will be shown in some 50 communities, and my web address (this address, the address of this blog) will appear on the screen throughout the interview. How cool is that!

A 30 minute segment will be taped during the first week in October. It's coming up fast. I think I'm getting nervous.

Be Yourself Trivia

2011-09-19T20:24:00.007-04:00

I noticed that Joseph Cornell and I had the same Little Golden science book. Note the vertical array of colored dots on the rectangle of black in my collage titled Be Yourself shown above. Look to the left of Mrs. Gardner. The colors change from orange at the top to blue at the bottom.

OK, now advance to 4:43 on this Joseph Cornell slide show on YouTube. (I mentioned it once before two posts ago.) In the bottom left Cornell has used the same array of dots in the same order, orange at the top to blue at the bottom.

Skip Battaglia and Norman Juster

2011-09-18T15:39:00.006-04:00

Having a YouTube kind of day! I just watched this great short film called Parataxis made by Skip Battaglia in 1980.

Am I the Story I tell myself? Consciousness begins with the first lie. My memory is redundant so that I might begin to exist. I could tell you but this would tell you nothing.

And I found my all-time favorite by Norman Juster, The Dot And The Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics. I've posted about the book before here. According to Wikipedia, Juster's story was inspired by the 1884 satirical novella Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott (writing pseudonymously as "A Square") who offered pointed observations on the social hierarchy of the Victorians.

Flatland inspired me as well. See this post for a collage example!

Larry Jordan & Joseph Cornell

2011-09-18T14:11:00.011-04:00

I was very excited when I discovered the animation of Larry Jordan three years ago. Today I noticed a number of his pieces on YouTube including Gymnopedies (1965, with an enigmatic score by Eric Satie) and Hamfat Asar (1965).

And here's another great find, Carousel-Animal Opera filmed by Joseph Cornell in the 1930's and later completed by Larry Jordan in the 1970's.

And speaking of Joseph Cornell, here's a nice slide show of his work, including some altered books which I have never seen before. And here's his strange upside-down, reversed and negative image world of By Night With Torch and Spear with a marvelously haunting sound track!

Here's an interesting bit that I learned on the YouTube site. Made by splicing together stock footage that Cornell had found and collected, the film premiered at the first Surrealist exhibition in New York 1936. Salvador Dalí, present at its first screening, was outraged, claiming he had just had the same idea of applying collage to film. He remarked that Cornell should stick to making boxes and stop making films. Traumatized, Cornell rarely showed his films there after.

Larry Jordan was one of a number of young assistants that Cornell hired to help organize his collections. I wonder if the blue predominating in Gymnopedies is a nod to Cornell's Rose Hobart (1936) which was projected through a sheet of blue glass.

And I can't close without mentioning this superb example of bizarre collage animation dating from 1959: Stan Vanderbeek's Science Friction! There's a bit with a television in there that must have inspired Joanna Priestley.

Blowing Things Up & Shooting Stuff

2011-09-13T09:59:00.007-04:00

I discovered a great archive of the Du Pont Company periodicals via Things Magazine. There is much to read in the full text of 640 issues dating from the period 1913 to 2003. I'm going to enjoy exploring the Hagley Digital Archives in its entirety! I've added the link to my sidebar list of Reference Links.

Below is some of my favorite Du Pont cover art.

Dorje 2 Quilt

2011-09-11T11:14:00.005-04:00

Here's a Photoshop manipulation of a sketch book drawing that I posted recently on Future Dead Artists. Do I have too many blogs? Is there a 12-step program for this?

Wouldn't these be cool as scarves?

Parliament Presents Salvador Dali

2011-09-02T21:54:00.005-04:00

Here's a 1958 Mike Wallace interview with Surrealist Salvador Dali from YouTube. The dialog is interesting enough but the introduction featuring Wallace pushing Parliament cigarettes (they're Hi-Fi!) is really amazing! I discovered it via Brain Pickings.

Tumblr Categories

2011-09-01T16:51:00.009-04:00

I have been amusing myself (now that I no longer have Netflix) by collecting Tumblr images in various categories: Art I Like, Crosses, Dots, Eyes, Hands, and Patterns to name a few of my favorites. I have expanded my sidebar list of Tumblr Links to 50 visually interesting sites.

I have a particular fondness for phrenological heads and palmistry hands so I was thrilled to discover the amazing piece pictured above. The artist is Simon Evans and you can see more of his work at the James Cohan Gallery.

The sections of color remind me of maps, particularly the ones that illustrate bedrock geology. I have a feeling that I will be doing my own version of hands, and perhaps even a head or two as well!

Dorje (Theme No. 3)

2011-08-05T11:38:00.005-04:00

This is my new meditation piece, a collage made of Epson printed marker dots. The substrate is 24x24 inch stretched canvas covered with gray Thai unryu over black #1 "Stringth" bead cord.

Its companion is this version on white inspired by kinetic artist Julio le Parc.

New Gallery Photos

2011-07-13T15:36:00.009-04:00

In celebration of my 15th anniversary in business we had Art on the Lawn at Anita's Beads last Saturday. I brought out all of the collage pieces that were displayed in the house and made room for them in the two shop galleries. I am really enjoying seeing them hanging all together. The photos above show Gallery 1 working across the room from left to right.

Most of the new work is hanging in Gallery 2. I even took "Blanche Big" from its customary place at the bottom of the front stairs.

Marbled Paper

2011-07-09T21:44:00.008-04:00

I've been collecting marbled paper for a while with the intent of using it for collage. It started with marbled endpapers in old books from the dump. And I bought some incredible hand marbled paper from Chena River Marblers out of Amherst, Massachusetts. I have a sheet like the fantastic multicolored one, and also the gold one shown on their home page.

But what prompted me to begin this post was the discovery of these fabulous marbled paper images from a really interesting site called Sheaff: ephemera. Don't miss the artistic printing album. I love these red and green hands, and also this cool hand postcard advertising the New Hampshire Craftsmans Fair at New Hampshire's Mt. Sunappe State Park. There's even an anti-tipping hand.

And also this view of the interior of the Park Street subway station in Boston. And how about this combination of dots and postage stamps, or this cool body in a bottle!

And if you liked the body in a bottle, you will love the collages of Muharrem Cetin. along with each image is a series of detail views of the piece. It's a very simple but effective site and the work is very thought-provoking. The collage detail above from Cetin's piece titled "False Five" with marbled paper provided a nice tie-in to my original subject. Seeing it has made me decide to pull together some of my marbled papers tomorrow.

X-Dots for the Library

2011-06-29T19:54:00.004-04:00

I just finished the posters for this years fundraiser for the Gafney Library. I made a collaged version on foam board for display in the library, and then I made a Photoshop version for printing and posting. I used some of my marker dots cut into quarters and rotated 45 degrees to form flashing white X's as the decoration.

This year there are 57 local artists donating their work which will be on display in the library for most of July. Raffle tickets are $1. so if you find yourself in Wakefield, take a chance!

Two New Crosses

2011-06-25T19:30:00.005-04:00

I never did finish my previous post. That list of Russian artists should have hyperlinks to pictures of their work. I got Internet Explorer 9 in the midst of it and then couldn't highlight and link in the compose editor. So I painfully set it up by doctoring the html only to find I couldn't publish or save. So now I am back in Firefox and things are back to normal.

Having no computer for a while was actually good for me. I had fun drawing and cut a path in the back yard which I will photograph for my Temporary Blog. I made good use of one of my crosses as an hours advertisement for my bead shop.

I wish I could put it on my websites but my Front Page will not run on Windows 7. But aside from that, and no longer having MSWord, everything else is pretty much back to normal. I'm enjoying the speed of my cable and, to get back to the Russians, I found a bunch of cool YouTube videos on Kandinsky and El Lissitzky that I will make the subject of a later post.

Constructivism and the Visual Verities

2011-06-23T11:22:00.007-04:00

I've just begun reading George Rickey's book Constructivism: Origins and Evolution (Revised Editon; NY: George Braziller, 1995) which I purchased some time ago at the Museum of Fine Arts bookstore in Boston. I wasn't into collage yet but look at those dots on the cover! Even back then they held an attraction for me.

The term "Constructivism" was invented c.1914 by Russian artist Vladimir Tatlin to define objects built rather than cast or carved, or any design in two or three dimensions reminiscent of Euclid: flat and rectilinear or made with straight edge or compass.

The constructivists (1913-1922) include some of my favorite Russian artists: Tatlin, Malevich, Rodchenko, El Lissitzky, Naum Gabo, Antoine Pevsner and (briefly) Wassily Kandinsky.

In the preface to the revised edition, the author presents this list of visual verities ". . . waiting like the keys of a piano for a human touch:"

Time

Space

Color

Light

Texture

Contrast

Passage

Impact

Echo

Void

Shape

Acute

Obtuse

Convex

Concave

Sound

Silence

New Cross Block

2011-06-22T10:37:00.003-04:00

My new internet cable was installed this morning. I have a few problems that hopefully will be solved by the new connection speed, and then things will be back to normal, a newer,*faster* normal!

I can upload images to my blogs again. Hooray!

Incommunicado

2011-06-10T14:49:00.003-04:00

My computer is dying. So I will be absent for a while until I can get a replacement. I can be reached at 603-522-6529 (sorry, got that wrong the first time - typo corrected!) and my shop is open 10-5. I will be open 7 days during July and August; otherwise closed on Tue & Wed. Hope to be back soon. -Anita

Orange Cross Block

2011-06-08T14:24:00.003-04:00

This one reminds me a bit of Peter Max.

Ten Crosses

2011-06-07T17:09:00.003-04:00

I'm having so much fun with these marker drawings. Last night I did a bunch of them. I started making them larger and ended up having to piece a couple of them together from two images as they were too large for the scanner. I will play further with some of these to see what they will do when repeated.

Here is number 10:

Big Sur

2011-05-31T20:26:00.004-04:00

Recognize this?

I think the heat has got to me today! This needs color.

Fowlie's Age of Surrealism

2011-05-30T09:03:00.009-04:00

I've had Wallace Fowlie's Age of Surrealism (1950: The Swallow Press and William Morrow) on my shelf for a while, having found it a few years ago at the dump. In it there are some very thought-provoking passages.

The word surrealism . . . has one closed and confining use to describe the artistic movement centering in Paris in the years between the two World Wars, 1919-1939. In the 20's and the 30's, surrealism was an organized movement, iconclastic and revolutionary in nature, with its leaders and disciples, its manifestos and publications, its exhibitions and even its street brawls. It became international during those years to such an extent that fourteen countries were represented in its 1939 exhibition. But surrealism has another meaning, perhaps even an eternal meaning, and a context far wider than that of the Andre Breton group which chronologically succeeded dadaism about 1924. . . The importance and the seriousness of surrealism equal now the seriousness granted the other two contemporary movements of communism and neo-thomism. These three "revolutions" seem to be the most important for an understanding of our modern world, and although they appear to us now of almost equal importance, I shouldn't be surprised that in time surrealism, because of its subtle alliance with communism and the problem of spirituality, will grow into its real stature of the most vital and renovating movement of modern thought and art. [pp. 11-13]

Fowlie then places surrealism "beside the two words 'classicism' and 'romanticism' which for so long have been the cause of controversy and definition in Western art."

The immediate words which come to mind when we think of classicism are order, control, condensation, choice, synthesis, rules. The classical movement is that one when the artist is faithful not only to the rules of his art, established by such an authority as Aristotle, but faithful also to the government of his political state. As an artist he is in accord with the moral, political and aesthetic beliefs of his society. [p. 14]

Romanticism, according to Fowlie, is the opposite of classicism and as such is associated with revolution and liberation.

The classicist is closely bound up with society and the romanticist is the artist quite alone and apart, the individual who is opposed to society and who finds the rules for his art in himself. In its highest sense, romantic art is created by a single artist, as opposed to classical art which is created by a society. [p. 14]

Surrealism follows from romanticism in its belief in the autonomy of the artist, along with his isolation and uniqueness. The surrealists extolled automatism or automatic writing:

. . . as being the legitimate method of the creative artist. To seek in oneself, on all the various levels of consciousness of oneself, the rules and the form of one's art is the romantic method, but it is also the surrealist method. [pp. 14-15]

Fowlie explains that the conscious state of man is not sufficient.

His subconscious contains a larger and especially a more authentic or accurate part of his being. It was found that our conscious speech and our daily actions are usually in contradiction with our true selves and our deeper desires. The neat patterns of human behavior, set forth by the realists. . . were found to be patterns formed by social forces rather than our desires or temperaments or inner psychological selves. This discovery or conviction that we are more sincerely revealed in our dreams and in our purely instinctive actions than in our daily exterior habits of behavior. . . is of course basic to surrealism. . . A new kind of absolute is in sight, which, although it contains a refusal of what we usually call logical intelligence, it is an elevation of the subconscious of man into a position of power and magnitude and (the word now forces itself on us) surreality. [pp 16-17]

There are chapters on various surrealist writers, poets and playwrights (Lautreamont, Rimbaud, Mallarme, Apollinaire, Breton, Cocteau and Eluard, the friend of artist Max Ernst) followed by a chapter on the art of Picasso.

Interesting to note that the volume passed through the hands of two Manchester, New Hampshire booksellers.

Here's a bit on solitude which I found to be particularly interesting:

The word most often used to describe the romantic temperament is individualism. The romantic is generally considered the type of artist who has broken the rules and constraining bonds of an established order. . .But before attaining to this experience of himself, the romantic has had to go through a longer, and I believe, a far more significant experience which is that of solitude--a very particular kind of solitude which results in forming the prevailing temperament of the great modern artists. . . each one had to become a new and unique solitary hero, discovering in his own conscience and his own memory the subject matter of his works. The experience of solitude probably explains more about modern literature and art than any other single experience. In his solitude, which is his inheritance, the modern artist has had to learn that the universe which he is going to write or paint is in himself. . . The romantics held this belief partially and intuitively. The surrealists make it into a creed and a method. [pp. 26 & 29]

And this statement on the intrusiveness of the new media made me wonder how the surrealists of that time would react to television's ubiquitous presence in restaurants and Wal-Marts!

They were tired and disgusted with the literary eloquence and verboseness of the 20th century. Their age had become a verbal nightmare for them. The radio, with its perpetual flow of words, was converting the world into a delirious cacophony. The language of man was being prostituted and degraded as it had never been before. [p. 105]

Listening to Chomsky

2011-05-28T15:18:00.004-04:00

I filled a whole sketchbook page with marker doodles while watching Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without A Pause from Netflix. The nice thing about Chomsky's presentations is you really only need to listen. Noam Chomsky, born in 1928, tops the list of people I admire and I wonder who will step forward and continue his great work when the time comes that he is no longer with us.

Alex Steinweiss Album Cover Art

2011-05-28T11:12:00.004-04:00

I just discovered a wonderful graphic designer named Alex Steinweiss who was responsible for the invention of album cover art in the late 1930's. Here's a bit of history from the Alex Steinweiss site:

Before Alex Steinweiss invented the album cover in 1938, at the age of 23, all albums came in plain brown wrappers. Steinweiss's idea to create a package that had something visual on the outside to lure the consumer was a huge success. That simple idea revolutionized the record business and spawned an entire new field of illustration--album cover art--that is now inseparable from the product it announces. Steinweiss's covers are still regarded as icons of the genre. He designed them as miniature posters, with eye-catching graphics, distinctive and vivid colors, and creative, original typography. He was an accomplished illustrator, and he incorporated original artwork into most of his pieces. The Steinweiss style went hand in hand with the golden age of jazz, classical, and popular music.

Follow this link to the Steinweiss covers page which has over 70 examples including the one with a cool collage treasure dot shown above. My first LP was "Rubber Soul" by The Beatles. I miss that large 12x12 format. Today's CD's are too small to do their artwork justice, but I guess that's progress for you.

Taschen has published what looks to be a great book on Steinweiss. There is also a biography, For the Record: The Life and Work of Alex Steinweiss on Amazon.

CrossCrossFuzzy

2011-05-16T18:37:00.003-04:00

This one makes me feel happy. I wonder how it would look on a 30x30 canvas. It would look even better on four of them. Then you could switch their directions. That would be fun.

Surrealist Kay Sage

2011-05-11T08:55:00.003-04:00

I'm reading Judith D. Suther's biography of the painter Kay Sage titled A House of Her Own: Kay Sage, Solitary Surrealist (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.) The author describes how the "surrealist espousal of dream states, the non-rational, and the individual's access to the unconscious held the key to authentic creativity."

There's a nice slide show on YouTube showcasing Sage's work. I find her painting titled "Tomorrow is Never" of the shrouded skyscrapers enclosed by scaffolding (at 1:30) to be very disturbing. Makes me think of a last-ditch and now abandoned effort to escape the killing effects of a chemtrail laden atmosphere.

I guess I never realized how may artists are represented on YouTube. Other women surrealists I found there include: my all-time favorite Remedios Varo, Dorothea Tanning, Ilene Meyer (who is new to me and needs to be explored further), and Leonora Carrington.

Still More Dots

2011-05-10T21:30:00.002-04:00

Icon With Le Parc Dots

2011-05-10T21:02:00.006-04:00

Here's one from the Archive of Indecision. It's on cradled plywood so I've had it hanging on the wall just by the doorway where I walk into the kitchen, and every time I walked by I felt slightly annoyed because I hadn't solved it yet. So today I took it off the wall and placed it on the library table. Suddenly these dots started jumping on!

The sharp white corners at the top pointing toward her head were bothering me. I knew the purple paint was trouble the moment I started putting it on over two years ago. I think if I get rid of some of the white lines I may be happier.

Now that little red dot on the left is pissing me off. I need to punch out two more small purple ones if I can find more of that paper. . .

I really like the way the pink thai unryu looks over the shadowy areas.

Today's Dot Play

2011-05-10T18:01:00.005-04:00

I have a few jars of marking pens, a sketch pad, and my circle templates next to my bed and every night I design a few dots. Today I printed two series: the off-center primaries (above) and the orange and green targets (below) as 3.5 inch dots. Tomorrow I will see what they want to do on 20x20 inch canvas. (Better yet, a 24x24 inch one.)

I Don't Know Why

2011-05-08T12:37:00.001-04:00

I really like this for some reason.

Green Grid No. 2

2011-05-08T12:03:00.003-04:00

Green Grid

2011-05-07T10:17:00.004-04:00

This is from the back side of another marker drawing. It's a bit of a departure as the grid itself has been highlighted in green.

In this second example I cut and pasted purple dots, pink dots and green squares from the original drawing. It's interesting to note how the green outline can be totally dropped out using Enhance - Adjust color - Replace color.

In Progress On Grid

2011-05-06T12:19:00.002-04:00

Here's a work in progress utilizing some of the marking pen dots shown in a previous post. The grid was created with black acrylic paint and masking tape.

892 Unique Ways: The Movie

2011-05-06T09:40:00.003-04:00

I think about grids a lot. I would be lost without some sort of grid to support my dots. Pattern thrives on a grid. So I was excited to learn from The Design Observer Group (via things magazine) that there are 892 unique ways to partition a 3x4 grid into unit rectangles. Hugh Dubberly's article is illustrated by a lovely poster which can be downloaded in .pdf format. And there is also a neat video clip which runs you through all of the possible configurations.

Now if you increase that area to 3x5 I wonder how many more variations would be possible? I'm sure librarians everywhere would like to know.

Moon Dots for Peter

2011-05-03T21:08:00.003-04:00

Here's Another One

2011-05-03T12:57:00.004-04:00

There is something so satisfying about this process. It's like having unlimited Colorforms. I'd like to have this one on fabric.

Colorforms were invented in 1951 when two art students, Harry and Patricia Kislevitz, began experimenting with flexible vinyl as an alternative to paint. Colorforms were one of the first brands in the toy industry to be advertised ("It's more fun to play the Colorforms way!") on television. I loved the colorful basic shapes set as a child. Didn't you?

Paul Rand (designer of the IBM, UPS and General Electric logos) created the Colorforms logo.

I Can't Stop

2011-05-03T08:17:00.004-04:00

Diagonal Marker Cross

2011-05-02T11:38:00.005-04:00

Another new discovery: the "magnetic" lasso! Now I can cut and paste shapes with irregular outlines.

This exercise is done with a scan from the reverse side of the previous Marker Cross drawing. I love how the markers bleed through the paper and look like watercolor.

Marker Cross

2011-05-02T09:29:00.003-04:00

Amazing tool, that Photoshop lasso. It has freed me from the limitation of the dot shape for cutting and pasting.

More Marker Dots

2011-05-01T11:49:00.007-04:00

These are from scans of the back side of marker drawings, which bled through the sketch book paper. I love the effect. Then I manipulated in photoshop.

Here's another version of the one with the green pin-wheel. It looks like it was painted in watercolor. I figured out how to use the lasso tool to outline one of the white areas behind the four dots. Then I painted the area yellow with the brush. Then I cut and pasted the shape so the white and yellow areas alternated. I re-applied the dots to the yellow areas using cut and paste also. Then I rotated a square area (using the square brush selection tool) in the center to get that ribbon candy shape.

Meg Hitchcock's Visual Mantras

2011-04-28T16:00:00.005-04:00

Meg Hitchcock's reassembled text collages serve to illustrate how obsessive a devoted book altering artist can be. I just discovered her work while following up on ACA Galleries' advertisement for their upcoming show Fragments: Modern and Contemporary Collage (April 30 through June 11).

On her Art Blog, Meg reveals a bit about her method: "Briefly, my creative work goes like this: I cut up sacred texts letter by letter, disemboweling the word of God, and then reconfigure them letter by letter to create another sacred text." Visit her website to see her lovely paintings (in three series: Gates, Totems and Knots) and more collage work.

There is also a clip on YouTube featuring the artist talking about her installation in process, re-writing the Koran as the Book of Revelation. She is a wizard with that x-acto knife! I found the viewer comments, which discuss the distinction between art and religion, to be interesting as well.

And, in postscript, I want to mention that Tony Fitzpatrick, my favorite collage artist from Chicago, will also be showing work in ACA's Fragments show.

New on Anita's Bead Blog

2011-04-25T18:09:00.003-04:00

I usually don't cross-post but I am so proud of myself for my accomplishment today that I am making an exception.

I've been making up for lost time over on my neglected bead blog today. I am adding information about the properties of minerals in a category titled About Stones. As of this posting there are twenty-five descriptions with photographs all of which are indexed on the sidebar for easy retrieval. This information has been buried on both my Anita's Beads and Toad Hollow Mineral sites so I hope that getting it up on Anita's Bead Blog (which receives a surprising amount of traffic considering how infrequently I have been posting there) will help it find a wider audience.

Pictured above are free-form cabochons of Beryllium Opal, also called Bertrandite or "Tiffany Stone."

Brian Dettmer's Book Art

2011-04-23T11:49:00.006-04:00

Brian Dettmer is known as "the Book Surgeon" for his technique of carving up old volumes to create beautiful sculptural art. Taking collage to the next level, he neither adds nor rearranges, only removes using scissors and surgical tools transforming dictionaries, old medical textbooks, and out-of-date encyclopedias into mind-boggling dioramas.

My Modern Met features fifteen illustrations of Dettmer's bibliotransformations as well as an exclusive interview with seven more photos. Visit the website of Brian Dettmer to view additional work dating from 2005 to 2010. Recent press includes an article on The New Yorker's "Book Bench" titled Postmodern Deconstruction. A solo show is scheduled for May 19, 2011 – June 11, 2011 at Kinz + Tillou in New York City.

Finding Frantz Ferdinand

2011-04-19T09:14:00.006-04:00

I just discovered the coolest animated collage in a music video by Franz Ferdinand called Take Me Out. It was brought to my attention by the Yahoo Group of artist Cecil Touchon. Due to my propensity for living with my head in the sand, I was never exposed to Franz Ferdinand back in 2004 when the video came out. That's OK. Their music is not my cup of tea but I love the animation which as described on Wikipedia was inspired by Dadaism, especially Max Ernst's collage novels Une Semaine de Bonte and The Hundred Headless Woman (La Femme 100 tetes) with a little Busby Berkeley and Russian constructivist design also thrown in.

The video was directed by Jonas Odell, who also did the "Window in the Skies" music video for U2. I found more of Odell's work on YouTube: Revolver, Body Parts, and Lies. And here's a short trailer for his 2010 film, Tussilago. I could really get into YouTube in a big way if I wasn't on slow dial-up!

Metamorphosis

2011-04-15T11:09:00.005-04:00

I have three collage pieces on display through May 27th in an art show in North Conway, New Hampshire at the Mt. Washington Valley Arts Association: Divination I, Landscape for Fossils, and Yellow Dots - My Paper. The show is titled "Metamorphosis: An Exhibit of Works Expressing Transformation and Rebirth." The gallery is at 16 Norcross Place in North Conway Village and the hours are 9-3 Monday through Friday, and 10-2 on Saturdays.

Works by the following MWVAA artists are on display: Peter Abate, Peggy Brewster, Karen Brisbois, Elise Edgerton, Jan Eskedal, Jessica Fligg, Kathleen Gilligan, John Girouard, J. P. Goodwin, Valentina Kobilansky, Heather MacLeod, Barbara McEvoy, Frank McLaughlin, Anita Muise, Dick O'Brien, Carl Owen, Sharon Soule, Cindy Spencer, Sean Stull, and Elaine Woodbury. For more information, visit the MWVAA website.

In Progress For Emily

2011-04-12T14:54:00.004-04:00

I have recently blogged about the experience of loneliness over on The Temporary Blog, having been inspired by a marvelous book by Clarke E. Moustakas. Check out The Best Books Are Thin and Loneliness: Part 2 to read some passages from this inspiring book.

To me, the most important premise of the book is that the condition known as existential loneliness leads directly to creative expression. Moustakas uses the secluded life of poet Emily Dickinson as an example, and reading about her reminded me of this lovely triptych which has been languishing in my Archive of Indecision. It may be time to dust it off and move forward with it!

Pen Dots

2011-03-09T17:26:00.006-05:00

I have been making dots with marking pens to print for a collage based on this tribute to Julio Le Parc. I'm thinking it would be interesting to make one on black. On a 30x30 canvas maybe. The tribute to Le Parc is 20x20 so bigger might be fun. Must locate black paint.

Wow, here's a cool discovery. I've been using this gridded paper for presentations with 2" squares. You can blacken each square individually by hitting it with the paint bucket. This could get interesting.

Breaking Through Non-Creativity

2011-03-09T14:25:00.004-05:00

It's been a while. I have been suffering from non-creativity among other things But I recently re-discovered a wonderful book on my shelf: Everyday Osho: 365 Daily Meditations for the Here and Now. Now if, as the title suggests, one is supposed to read only one Meditation a day, I have blown it. For I gulped this book down in two sittings, taking time to mark a few passages that immeasurably moved me so as to easily locate them again:

103. MAKING A PATH - "When there has been a breakthrough, make it a point to relive it again and again. Just sitting silently, remember it; don't just remember it, relive it."

121. DARKNESS - "Don't try to fight with the darkness. There is no way, because the darkness does not exist--how can you fight with it? Just light a candle and the darkness is gone."

170. SADNESS - "When sad, be really sad, sink into sadness. What else can you do? Sadness is needed. . . Accept it, and you will see that the moment you accept sadness, it starts becoming beautiful."

These are just three among many. But the one that really helped me understand creative break-through was this:

257. THE FALSE AND THE TRUE - "You have nothing to compare false love to unless the real happens, so when meditation starts, the illusory love by and by dissipates, disappears. Don't be disheartened, and don't make disappointment a permanent attitude. If someone is a creator and meditates, all creativity will disappear for the time being. . . The false will disappear and that's a basic condition for the real to appear. The false. . . must vacate you completely; only then are you available for the real."

I think I did just fine. I was just making up for so much lost time.

Collage Collections on The Altered Page

2011-02-20T11:05:00.004-05:00

Check out Collector's Edition Volume 8 over on Seth Apter's blog The Altered Page. Seth had mentioned two of my collage techniques in his Secret Sunday series a while back and this Sunday he included my statement about collecting old books. Visit his site to see what other collage artists are obsessed with!

And if old books are your interest also, you might enjoy my latest blog called Biblio - Dots.

Scan + Flip + Repeat = Inadvertent Valentine

2011-02-12T08:43:00.007-05:00

This is from a drawing made on big graph paper, the kind found at Staples on an easel pad for presentations. There were a few glitches in the original that I fixed with the clone stamp before repeating it. When I focus on the pink areas in the image above, and allow them to merge somewhat with the diamonds, I see X's and O's.

Reading Fingerprints

2011-01-30T12:29:00.004-05:00

Here's another advertisement from the August 1944 issue of Popular Mechanics. What can you read in this finger print? There is a secret hidden in it, just as there is in every finger print.

Study the advertisement from the Institute of Applied Science above and you will see the answer: Your Fortune. The words appear twice.

Learn about the History of Fingerprinting and read two books of historical interest on the Internet Archive: Francis Galton's 1895 publication Fingerprint Directories and James Holt's Fingerprints Simplified published c.1920.

The first London printing of Galton's book Finger Prints published by Macmillan in 1892 is commanding the whopping price of $1,500 on Biblio.

Reference Links No. 62 & 63

2011-01-28T10:41:00.009-05:00

I've been adding to my list of Reference Links lately. It's winter, the world of retail is frozen in limbo in my area of New Hampshire, so I'm spending more time searching the web. As a result I am finding more and more inspiring visual material! This morning I started off on the site of boxed assemblage artist Frank Turek. (Frank is out of Portland, Maine and I know him through participation in his contemporary clown art show at Ubu Studio.) Frank's site led me to Early Visual Media, which has become link number 62. on my reference list.

From there I visited Cornell University Library's site (link number 63.) on The Fantastic in Art and Literature. Here's an excerpt from their introductory page:

Because of its rich and varied modes of representation the Fantastic also lends itself quite easily to interdisciplinary approaches. Psychology and sociology, art and literary history, anthropology and folklore among other disciplines, can provide avenues of investigation useful in the study of such basic critical or analytical concepts for the Fantastic as repression, the uncanny, indeterminacy, or the postmodern. The image bank may thus also be useful for broadening discussions in areas of study quite removed from the Fantastic per se, and it is indeed our hope that it will do so.

First I discovered the marvelous wood engravings of Bernard Zuber. Then I found their complete book list of 75 or so titles which you will not find on the shelves of your local public library! Down near the bottom of the list I noticed this book with images from one of my favorite Mexican artists, Jose Guadalupe Posada. The image illustrating the top of this post is by Posada-- from a 35mm copy stand photo I took for a library school project on the art of Edward Gorey where I attempted to show Posada as a possible influence.

And I could not resist cropping the dot below from Plate 7. of Sphaera Coelestis Mystica, a hand-colored geometrical diagram of biblical passages.

Beautiful Book Bindings 1830-1910

2011-01-26T21:16:00.007-05:00

I added two new reference links today. One is to a fabulous collection of book bindings--the University of Rochester's Rare Books and Special Collections online exhibit titled Beauty for Commerce: Publisher's Bindings 1830-1910. I added it to my list of reference links under Bindings 1830-1910. I love the way their photographs show both the front cover and the spine together.

So much so that I gave similar treatment to an interesting dump find from my collection. Below are two pages from Samantha in Europe by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley) and illustrated by C. DeGrimm (NY: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1896).

I've also added a second new reference link to a site called Gallery of Graphic Design. It's an amazing collection of magazine advertisements, dating 1930 -1969, conveniently sorted by advertiser (3121 of them!), illustrator, magazine, product and keyword. Check out this one by Salvador Dali illustrating for De Beers Diamonds.

Here the product is industrial chemicals but the artwork is anything but industrial. The tag line for this one is "No Sibling Rivalry" and the illustration reminds me of a Rorschach inkblot test! And here's a third one for the same company, Celanese, that's also got eye-catching artwork.

And finally, here's a very dramatic advertisment for Drano. Don't let this happen to you!

Introducing Biblio - Dots!

2011-01-25T19:59:00.003-05:00

I started another blog today for showcasing the "old and odd" illustrated books in my collection. The first discussion is on one titled Fascination, or The Philosophy of Charming published by the phrenological Fowler brothers (Lorenzo and Orson) and Samuel Wells in 1885. I thought this would be a good choice since I am currently reading Madeleine B. Stern's Heads & Headlines; The Phrenological Fowlers.

The new blog is called Biblio - Dots. I'm still not done fussing with fonts and colors yet but it's getting there.

Space Race Square

2011-01-23T11:16:00.006-05:00

I've been playing with some lovely vintage cover art from an old issue of Popular Mechanics which I put up recently on The Temporary Blog. I love the pinwheel effect when the image is turned and repeated!

Nose Thing Dot

2011-01-22T20:24:00.006-05:00

I started getting into my old magazines tonight. These advertisements are from an August, 1944 issue of Popular Mechanics which is missing its cover.

Barbara Kruger Does Barbasol

2011-01-20T16:26:00.007-05:00

I just started reading a fabulous book: Barbara Kruger (NY: Rizzoli, 2010). Even if you are not familiar with the name you probably would recognize her signature artwork: black and white photos with bold captions on red backgrounds.

The book is 312 pages and so far I have been skimming and skipping. Imagine my surprise to see that Kruger appropriated one of my favorite Barbasol advertisement images (original ad pictured above; blogged earlier here) from a 1950's Life magazine! I learned from her Wikipedia entry that the typeface she uses is Futura Bold and she studied art and design with Diane Arbus at Parson's School of Design. The entry pointed me to a clever Graphic Standards Manual. And a nice selection of her work can be seen here.

Re-Visiting Grandmother's Flower Garden

2011-01-14T12:10:00.008-05:00

Back in the early 90's I got off onto a serious "Grandmother's Flower Garden" quilt tangent. Patterns are created from interlocking hexagons. The trick is to baste fabric over precisely cut paper templates so all the angles meet exactly when the pieces are assembled by hand. I would run off sheets of hexagon shapes (outlined in thin black marker) on a xerox machine and spend hours cutting them out. Then I would baste fabric pieces over them. I became totally addicted to the process, spending hours in the evenings after work. I had a little tin of paper and fabric hexagons that I carried in my purse so I could baste on the train, while being driven in the car, while camping, and even once while killing time on jury duty.

My first quilt was hexagon shaped. It hangs on the wall behind my computer--unfinished.

Above is another quilt (also unfinished) I called "Communicating With Extraterrestrials." I used little beads in place of traditional quilting or tying.

My most ambitious quilt, an experiment in color shifting, was an excuse to collect cotton fabric in as many solid colors and small prints that I could find!

I constructed hundreds of hexagons and pinned them to a huge piece of foam board which took over the kitchen table and provided endless amusement for cats. The piece was disassembled when I moved to New Hampshire and exists only as a photograph.

Recently I spent some time sorting the pieces after 15 years and made a little test piece to see how I liked them collaged with space between the units. So far I am underwhelmed, although I do rather like the photoshop manipulated version at the top of this post.

Collage as Gesamtkunstwerk

2011-01-04T12:00:00.008-05:00

I'm still reading my way through "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" which is a chapter from Dialectic of Enlightenment ( Adorno & Horkheimer, 1944). There I came across a marvelous German word: gesamtkunstwerk.

Translated as" total work of art," the idea of gesamtkunstwerk implies ideal work of art, universal artwork, synthesis of the arts, comprehensive artwork, all-embracing art form, or total artwork. The term was first used in 1827 by the German writer and philosopher K. F. E. Trahndorff. As a "supernaturalist," Trahndorff opposed theological rationalism and embraced the indeducible, supernatural and mystical nature of religious revelation. German opera composer Richard Wagner used the term in his 1849 essays "Art and Revolution" and "The Artwork of the Future", where he speaks of unifying all works of art via the theater.

I see collage as a synthesis of both the visual arts (painting, photography, graphic design, etc.) and of the ephemeral bits of life, memories and dreams; a curio cabinet of the soul.

And, in keeping with the German theme, check out Alexander Korzer-Robinson's amazing collages constructed with the German encyclopaedia Brockhaus Konversationslexikon.

Whispering In the Closet

2011-01-03T12:24:00.006-05:00

The Art Group will be showing new work at the Gafney Library during the month of February. This is good. I have a definite deadline for the work in progress. That said, I have spent the day so far exploring tangents, one in particular.

I wanted to title this post: "A Collage Artist and Former Librarian Considers ETEWAF (Everything That Ever Was--Available Forever)" but it was too long. I credit the blog Retrospace for starting me off in this direction. The idea of having access to every book ever written is a librarian's dream. And what collage artist wouldn't like to have access to every image that ever was, printed with indelible ink on acid-free paper?

But, reading further in Wired Magazine and Inhabitatio Dei, I began to ask myself if this ETEWAF phenomenon is really such a good thing. The comments on the Inhabitatio Dei post were instructive, leading me to consider the book Dialectic of Enlightenment by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, the chapter titled "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" in particular.

And if all of that didn't give me enough to think about, I also stumbled upon a summary of Walter Benjamin's essay titled "The Work of Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Does making use of found images in collage result in the loss of "aura" that Benjamin discusses?

Time will tell. Bottom line is I have four works in progress for the February show and damn little progress has been made so far today!

Day Off

2010-12-28T18:20:00.004-05:00

Spent the day reading, shoveling snow, eating leftover Christmas goodies, and making a mess on the library table.

More Batik

2010-12-27T11:39:00.007-05:00

Making up for lost time here today I guess. . . as well as resting up for round two of shoveling! Here are scans of some old photos of my quilted batik wall hangings and pillows. I also did silk-screened children's t-shirts all under the name "Designs on You." Pictured above is "Waltzing Matilda." (I was big into Tom Waits back then.)

Below are two versions of one called "The Bride." I love this one because it reminds me of my mother, Irene, and I intend to do a collage series based on it some day. The close-up is of the original green version. The second one is a later gold version. I like the green one the best.

The one below is called "Moonflower." I did a second version which I called "Sunflower" that was yellow with green which I recall seeing in a closet somewhere. Interesting to note the early use of dots!

Below is one of the last batiks I did called "Crocus: Kiss of Death." Following that are two of my pillows.

Bluebeard

2010-12-27T10:51:00.006-05:00

The first in the series of myth and fairy tale collages will be one titled Bluebeard. I re-discovered some old photos of my batik wall hangings just recently! The back of the photo above is dated July 1982.

As soon as I read the part about bluebeard in Women Who Run With the Wolves, I realized who the piece has been about all this time. For the new collage version I envision lots of icy blue with wintery white snowflake dots! As luck would have it, I've managed to hold on to a half dozen of my original drawings for the batiks. The May 2010 studio shot below shows the Bluebeard drawing just above the step stool. And there's the Blanche drawing just under the word "natural."

Women Who Run With The Wolves

2010-12-27T09:17:00.004-05:00

I'm reading a very inspiring book by Clarissa Pinkola Estes titled Women Who Run With the Wolves; Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. (For more of my recent reads see: The Link Between Books and Sanity on The Temporary Blog.) From it I am gaining inspiration for a new series of collages based on myths and fairy tales. The series begins with a number of drawings done back in 1980-1982 for batik. I've already made extensive use of one of the drawings for my Blanche collages.

As an interesting aside, I found two old pages from an old book of nursery rhymes in my book on the Centennial Exhibition by Sandhurst. I guess the time is ripe for the fairy tale theme!

Contemplating the Quarter Dot

2010-12-26T09:35:00.006-05:00

I have been meditating on what has become my favorite collage: After Le Parc (Theme No. 1). On my collage web site it can be found linked from the Tributes & Inspirations page. I moved it physically from the gallery into my bedroom a while ago. It looks fabulous in half-light! The white divisions between the quarter dots keep the eye in kinetic motion which is in keeping with the art of Julio Le Parc upon who's work the piece is based.

I have been thinking about doing other versions of the same dots on different background colors. Black, gray and yellow are three that come to mind. I'd also like to change the color scheme of the dots themselves. The digital quilt version below seems less pleasing to me than I originally hoped, due to the imposition of the dark area which was caused by my casting a shadow when I photographed the work.

I have explored the quarter dot theme in two other pieces: a poster for the Gafney Library fundraiser in 2009, and a small acrylic painting on thai unryu.

Centennial Exhibition Digital Collection

2010-12-25T10:49:00.005-05:00

Season's Greetings! to everyone. (I have taken some time off from this blog due to personal reasons which will be brought to light soon in a new collage series!)

I have just added a new reference link: 1876 Centennial Exhibition . The Centennial Exhibition Digital Collection and web site were developed by the Free Library of Philadelphia with a National Leadership grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. I've just begun exploring the site which documents one of my favorite events in American History.

Images are from Phillip T. Sandhurst's beautifully illustrated book: The Great Centennial Exhibition Critically Described and Illustrated (Philadelphia: P.W. Ziegler, 1876).

It's Not Just Aspirin Any More

2010-10-01T19:28:00.004-04:00

Here's another interesting ad, this one for Anacin from the January 11, 1958 issue of Saturday Evening Post. Just what were the active ingredients back then I wonder?

"Bad Ideas" and Cigarette Advertising

2010-10-01T18:28:00.006-04:00

I noticed that the first post in Ptak Science's latest category titled "Bad Ideas Department" features an Old Gold cigarette ad from a Life magazine with the tag line: We're tobacco men. . . not medicine men--smoke OLD GOLD for a TREAT instead of a TREATMENT!

I thought immediately of this Saturday Evening Post ad with the exact same line. I'm amazed that I could lay my hands on it. Photo is a camera shot, as the page was too big for my scanner.

I'm reminded of Dustin Hoffman in Little Big Man and wonder what subliminal message the smoke is trying to send.

Early Personality Profiling

2010-09-22T05:41:00.001-04:00

I love the title of this one as well as the type used on the cover. Flak Magazine has an interesting write-up on William Gerhardi:

In the 1930s Gerhardie wrote a book with Prince Leopold of Loewenstein, "Meet Yourself as You Really Are," which has been described as an early example of hypertext. The catalogue of his works in the New Directions "Futility" describes "Meet Yourself ..." as "about three million detailed character studies through self-analysis"; Loewenstein would sit around talking about psychological types, while Gerhardie rendered the whole into witty, elegant English.

I've got this one on my reading pile. It's a very curious book!

Tales for Children

2010-09-21T18:35:00.004-04:00

I also just discovered a lovely blog called Nineteenth Century Dust Jackets.

International Dot Day

2010-09-15T19:19:00.003-04:00

Today, September 15, 2010 is International Dot Day so I had to check in here! Thanks to Ptak Science Books for calling the fact to my attention.

Bookplate Dot

2010-07-31T18:06:00.002-04:00

The phrase means "inspired by the Spirit."

More Squares

2010-07-29T08:35:00.003-04:00

I can't leave this one alone. It would be fabulous on 20x20 inch canvases! A version with very bright and contrasting colors might be interesting too.

Lots of Squares

2010-07-27T11:40:00.005-04:00

This began as a doodle on graph paper. It's hard to stop once I get to modifying in Photoshop. Below is the the original drawing in magic marker.

Flatland No. 1

2010-07-05T08:00:00.007-04:00

Now that I have my new Nikon Coolpix camera (thanks to the miracle of credit card miles!) I've been trying it out by catching up on some collage and shop photos. Here's the first of what will be a series of four 12x12 inch collages based on crossed squares. The original spark was the discovery of a book titled Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions which you can view on the Internet Archive.

The gray background is Thai unryu tissue over #5 black "stringth" which is a popular bead stringing material. I used a couple of leftover face quarters from my Zinc Pennies project. The suggestion is that of a rolling or flipping television image. The substrate is canvas board.

The Costly Star by Margaret Slattery

2010-07-04T08:16:00.009-04:00

I have a copy of what I have seen described as a "scarce antiquarian book" titled The Costly Star by Margaret Slattery. It was published by The Pilgrim Press of Boston in 1917 and is illustrated by Frank T. Merrill. I haven't been able to locate an original copy of this slim (32 page) volume for sale anywhere online. The listing in WorldCat shows four copies in libraries.

Other titles (some with links to the Internet Archive) by Margaret Slattery include:

The American Girl and Her Community.
The Charm of the Impossible.
The Girl and Her Religion.
The Girl in Her Teens.
He Took It Upon Himself.
The Highway to Leadership.
Just Over the Hill.
Living Teachers.
New Paths Through Old Palestine.
The Second Line of Defense: A Plea for the Men and Women of To-morrow.
Talks With the Training Class.
When You Enlist.
You Can Learn to Teach.

The illustrator, Frank T. [Thayer] Merrill (American, 1848-1936) is listed in Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers (Enlarged and Revised edition, 1974).

Merrill, Frank T. Painter. Born in Boston in 1848. He studied art at the Lowell Institute, and at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; he also studied in France and England. His water colors are free in wash and color, and he has also been very successful with his etchings. Merrill's work has been used extensively in illustrating and may be found in Thackeray's "Mahogany Tree" and in Irving's "Rip Van Winkle."

Merrill's work is available at the Childs Gallery. A search for Frank T. Merrill on the Internet Archive yields seven results:

Captain January by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards (two copies)
Colonial Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne
A Loyal Lass: A Story of the Niagara Campaign of 1814 by Amy Ella Blanchard
Six Boys by Elizabeth W. Champney
The Young Moose Hunters: A Backwoods-boy's Story by C. A. Stephens
The Interference of Patricia by Lilian Bell

Contact me if you are interested in purchasing this copy of The Costly Star. It is not an ex-library copy. There is a small portion of the front endpaper clipped off and slight damage to the spine which is shown in the photograph.

Blotted Cross How-To and More Warhol

2010-07-02T08:42:00.010-04:00

I was able to achieve the "blotted line" effect using Photoshop. My original sketch was in red Sharpie marker on a yellow lined tablet. (Does this depend on the color red to achieve the effect? I need to check that aspect out. . .)

Starting with a .jpg file I went to Image, then Mode and selected Grayscale.

And then, again under Mode, I converted the image to Bitmap (Input Resolution 72 pixels/inch; Output Resolution 1200 pixels/inch; Method use 50% threshold). The result is a .psd file which I resized to 600 pixels wide and then saved as a .gif.

Then, using the brush tool set to white, I cleaned up the background, preserving the cross design. (Note to self: straighten up the image in the first step while it is still in .jpg format because you can't do it once the image is in Bitmap!).

I need to experiment further to see what happens with different Resolution and Threshold settings.

Recently I've been noticing other blog posts related to Andy Warhol. My friend Jim at Dull Tool Dim Bulb links a coloring book published by Pittsburgh's H. J. Heinz Company to Warhol's Heinz Tomato Ketchup drawing.

And Mike over at Unremitting Failure published a great self-portrait in the style of Warhol's Marilyn Monroe portraits.

Andy Warhol and That Beautiful Blotted Line!

2010-06-30T08:38:00.010-04:00

It's the end of June already. To a certain extent I feel like I'm clawing my way through limbo. I don't have any finished collages to show for it but there are new possibilities on the horizon. I've been watching an amazing documentary from Netflix: Andy Warhol from the American Masters Series. Aside from learning about the politics behind trends in art, I have finally become aware of the importance of Andy Warhol's work.

Funny thing how growing up with it I just took the work for granted and never even saw it, really, let alone realized its implications. All that marvelous repetition! Can you imagine what he would have done had he access to Photoshop?

So now I am in love with that beautiful "blotted line." I even found instruction on how it is done. The possibilities for collage are astounding to me. And I keep watching the documentary over and over (should I admit, obsessively--Andy would have liked that) because every time I do I pick up on something new.

The blog called Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast has an interview in which children's illustrator Edwin Fotheringham elaborates on his use of the blotted line and it's digital translation via Photoshop using a "Wacom Cintiq" which Fotheringham describes as "essentially a flat panel monitor that acts as a pressure sensitive tablet, with stylus input."

Trompe l'Oeil

2010-06-08T09:16:00.008-04:00

I love the genre of painting known as trompe l'oeil. (Previous posts here.) So I was happy to find this back issue of Art & Antiques featuring Roxana Barry's article titled "Plane Truths: 19th Century American Trompe l'Oeil Painting."

During the period from 1875 to 1910 there arose a school of American trompe l'oeil painters comprised of William M. Harnett, John Haberle, John F. Peto, Jefferson David Chalfant, Alexander Pope, George Cope, De Scott Evens, Victor Debreuil and a number of lesser-known artists. These men executed many works within the narrow confines of the pure trompe d'oeil style--in which objects are depicted with photographically realistic detail. These paintings are usually done in life-size scale against a shallow or flat background comprised most often of a door or wall very close to the picture plane.

One thing I never thought about before is that trompe d'oeil portrays the "implacable reality" of a masculine world including currency, guns, assorted military and sporting paraphernalia. Barry provides an interesting discussion of the evolution of the "artificial separation of the masculine and feminine worlds" which occurred during the time of the artists. She begins by quoting a passage from Patricia Hill's Turn-of-the-Century America (1977):

"In a secular society, materialistic in its outlook, shocked by the behavior of men at the financial marketplaces and worried about the influx of immigrants, idealized human beauty became fair Anglo-Saxon types." These fair Anglo-Saxon beauties became the predominant images in American Painting. Passive and seemingly passionless, they appear to lead pampered sequestered lives of private reveries; playing solitaire and having teas, as if waiting for a momentous encounter. As women were excluded from the vigorous and corrupt world of politics and finance, they were an obvious choice of symbol to represent the opposites of those worlds: passivity and purity. Women were protected from the harsh realities of life; men had to live them, and thus the society was divided.

There is a modern Trompe l'Oeil Society and you can visit their web site here. It features the work of some very talented contemporary artists of the genre including Larry Charles, Donald Clapper, Eric Conklin, Garry T. Erbe, Gerald Hodge, Michael Molnar, and Gregory West. Interesting that there are no women artists among them even today!

Innocuous Desuetude

2010-06-08T07:42:00.006-04:00

I love the title of this post. It's meaning points to a state of disuse or inactivity, certainly appropriate given my recent absence here!

We had a town-wide yard sale over the holiday weekend. I didn't offer anything for sale, but did my bit by purchasing two boxes of old books from my neighbor up the street. Included were three volumes of an eleven-volume set of James D. Richardson's "A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents." Published in 1910 by the Bureau of National Literature and Art, individual volumes are available for as little as $3.45 so it is not a particularly rare find.

One of the three volumes is the index, itself a very useful 834 page dictionary of political figures and events, which includes maps illustrating the extent of the United States during the administrations of the various presidents from Washington through Roosevelt. From perusing this volume I learned the marvelous phrase made popular in a speech by President Cleveland: "innocuous desuetude."

In trying to get a better handle on the phrase, I came upon an interesting article by William Safire published in the New York Times on October 4, 1987 titled On Language; The Penumbra of Desuetude. The lovely old photograph of the Smithsonian is from volume ten, the last page of which is numbered 7809!

Actually, I really like the sound of "Penumbra of Desuetude" in the Safire subtitle. It just brought to mind a great book that I read in library school, James Lipton's An Exaltation of Larks about collective nouns. A penumbra of desuetude could also be something one might find in an Edward Gorey drawing, no?

The Impossible Dream

2010-05-17T20:25:00.006-04:00

I'm calling this one The Impossible Dream. It started with some squares of watercolor paper that were once an acrylic dot painting. I started arranging them on some different colored swatches of Mi Teintes to create units.

I decided to draw out my idea to see what happened when the unit was repeated. I didn't have much luck with this irregular shape:

Most of the patterns created with it had disruptive diagonal chevrons but I like the arrangement of sub-unit squares.

Look, It's the Atomist !

2010-05-17T17:56:00.010-04:00

I couldn't help but notice the post titled "Seeing Vision: Examples of Light and Sight Personified" on the blog Ptak Science Books . Their second illustration is the source for my Atomist! I first used her as a found illustration in Simulacra, below.

Then she became the subject of her own collage titled The Atomist Confronts the Infinate Void. I did two studies to fool around with acrylic paint before completing the final piece below:

Below is a reference photo showing a very early version. I was just beginning to assemble elements. Somewhere along the way the birds and the iris were eliminated. Maybe I'll do another version someday and include them.

I actually like this second study that I did the best. Her dress is an illustration from an old western novel:

And, how cool is this, I just noticed a whole series titled History of Dots on the Ptak Science Books blog. Absolutely amazing!

More on Zell's Encyclopedia

2010-05-17T13:17:00.005-04:00

Zell's Popular Encyclopedia: A Universal Dictionary of English Language, Science, Literature, and Art - In Two Volumes - New and Revised Edition can be seen on the Internet Archive. It is printed in three columns (my single volume edition is printed in two) and the illustrations are different. Link to Volume II. here.

I see there is a five volume edition (with a price of $1,200.00) and also a 126 page index written by Theodore W. McClintock in 1879 titled: Analysis of Zell's Popular Encyclopedia; Consisting of an Outline of Universal History; the Arrangement in Chronological Order of Historical, Biographical Titles in Zell's; With Synopsis of the History of Each Nation and Tables of Persons.

From Aldwyth to Zell

2010-05-14T09:38:00.004-04:00

I recently read about the collage artist Aldwyth and her exhibit organized the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston, South Carolina. The artist is described as "a voracious collector, scrupulous cataloguer, encyclopedic archivist, sly social commentator and corrective art-historian" by artnet Magazine. She sounds like someone I would enjoy talking with!

My curiosity was aroused when I learned that the source for one of her collages was Zell's Encyclopedia. I was lucky to be able to find an inexpensive copy minus its title page. The cover says: Zell's Universal Encyclopedia - New Edition - Self Pronouncing - Unabridged. Data from the United States Census of 1890 is included following 982 pages of alphabetical entries with lovely engraved illustrations.