Re-Visiting Grandmother's Flower Garden

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

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

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

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

More Batik

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

International Dot Day

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.