Felipe Jesus Consalvos

I just received in today's mail a copy of the exhibition catalog: "Cigarmaker, Creator, Healer, & Man": the artwork of Felipe Jesus Consalvos published by the Fleisher/Ollman Gallery in 2005. It contains 29 full color plates (a few with detail views) and photos of the artist as a young man. In addition to masterful cigar stamped collages, there are also decorated objects including a typewriter, a dress form, a clock, a wastepaper basket, a chair (decorated with a skeleton), a guitar, a violin with case (and another skeleton, this one holding a bunch of "Great Seal" balloons cut from the back of dollar bills), a bureau, and a boat model.

Much of the work is quite large. One piece titled Foil Temple, featuring numerous postage stamps and architectural details, is just over 41x34 inches. Opium Eaters ("Make Your Ladies Happy") is one of the smallest at 7.5x11 inches. I would be hard-pressed to declare a favorite without further study of all of the intricate details, but Home of the Nature Freak and The School For Future Mothers (with a man sporting a "Souvenir World's Fair" phallus) are on the short list!

Leo Lionni and Eric Carle

I've been thinking more about children's literature and what an influence children's book illustrators have had on me. One of my favorite illustrators employing collage was Leo Lionni who created some memorable picture books including: Let's Make Rabbits! ("Let’s make rabbits,” says the scissors to the pencil. . . and I always did like the scissors' rabbit best!) and Little Blue and Little Yellow (dots. . !) Lionni also wrote and illustrated a rather surreal sounding book for adults called Parallel Botany which I only just learned about today. First published in Italy as La Botanica Parallela, this illustrated fictional work is presented as popular science outlining the oddities of an elusive, frequently invisible, and wholly imaginary plant kingdom that coexists with botany as we know it. Lionni's botanical drawings were shown at Lehman College Art Gallery (Bronx, NY) in 1990, and in curator Nina Castelli Sundell's insightful essay I learned that as an adolescent he showed his paintings with the futurists. His work for children can be seen at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Mass.

Eric Carle, perhaps most famous for his book The Very Hungry Catepillar, is another magical collage artist. His not-to-be-missed official web site includes photos of Carle in his studio (with flat-files of paper filed by color, paint on his sleeves and everything!) and video clips showing how he creates his pictures.

The Dot and The Line

Thinking about school filmstrips reminded me of one of my all-time favorite short films and books: "The Dot and The Line" by Norton Juster. I couldn't get enough of the animated version. As children's librarian in Topsfield, Mass. I frequently borrowed the 16mm film from the Boston Public Library to show as an after-school short-feature. I recently found a copy of the hardcover book at the dump. As soon as I saw it I realized it had been my first exposure to the collage technique. What a big influence it has made on my collage work!

Kurt Schwitters

"Kurt Schwitters: An In-depth Look at the Life and Works of the Great Master is indeed a satisfying view of the fascinating work of collage artist Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948). Aside from a few production issues which were tolerable, this is a pretty great educational DVD, compared to the old "Eye-Gate" filmstrips from my classroom days! The best thing was the art, of course, and seeing so many of Schwitter's collages and assemblages for the first time. There are lots of detail views along with interesting commentary. Just recalling it makes me want to purge my desk of clutter and try my hand at transforming the refuse into little gems like Schwitters!

Optic Nerve

I just received a copy of Joe Houston's book titled "Optic Nerve: Perceptual Art of the 1960's." The book was published in 2007 in conjunction with an exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio. Pictured are the works of a number of forerunners: Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Wassily Kandinsky, Robert Delaunay, Paul Klee. (I've never seen the Delaunay painting, "Portuguese Woman" before and it's fantastic!) The link is to a slightly different version. The one in the book, from the collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, is better, in my opinion. The woman is looking towards the left a little more and her face shows more detail. And of course I like the dots!

All my favorite Op artists are here: Victor Vasarely, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Frank Stella, Bridget Riley, Tadasky (Tadasuke Kuwayama) and Ben Cunningham. And there are many others I haven't heard of. . . over sixty in all are listed in the Artists' Biographies section. The book measures 10x11 inches and contains numerous full page color illustrations, as well as '60's cover art from Vogue, Life and Look. Online you can see some beautiful Tadasky targets and Anuszkiewicz squares as part of the "Optic Visionaries" show at D. Wigmore in NYC.

Mauritanian Conus Shell

The latest issue of Ornament magazine (Vol. 32 No. 1) contains an article by editor Robert K. Liu titled: "Mauritanian Conus Shell Disks: A Comparison of Ancient and Ethnographic Ornaments." An important attribute of these shells from the marine gastropod Conus is the amuletic power to promote fertility. A bibliography of three dozen or so references concludes the article.

Clothilde's Dictionary

Yesterday I found a wonderful old French dictionary that could have belonged to my great-grandmother, Clothilde Simoneau (1877-1950). The little illustrations are marvelous and there are lovely chapter headings for every letter of the alphabet, plus some color plates and full page diagrams. The back cover is missing but the front cover was still attached and it is a thing of beauty!

Collage Progress Report

OK, Excuse No. 5 is this blog. It has become the index to all my projects. Toad Hollow Minerals is up on the web at my old bead site with links to Botanical Information on Aromatic Herbs and Essential Oils. "About Stones" is back and I'm in the process of photographing fossils and crystals from the shop. (Anita's Beads and the Jewelry pages need major work as well) . . . so as far as collage work is concerned, I have one major piece dedicated to Neil Welliver which could be done in an afternoon if I applied myself. (I'd rather tempt the cats with the pieces a little longer!) And perhaps a triptych to Lenny Bruce with a great book cover or two and something else very cool. No excuse not to be working on that one. And then there is my Archive of Indecision. Some potentially great stuff in there including two for my Tits series, and Feng Shui Mishap No.23 with a beautiful oriental ginger jar and my favorite orange paper that looks like silk. Used as a dot on The Atomist (Study No.2) above where the intensity of the orange has been diminished somewhat by the purple behind it.

I'm Not There Yet

Last night I started watching the second of my new DVDs: "I'm not There." I wanted to view this mainly because I had heard about Cate Blanchett's eerie performance as Bob Dylan. I didn't know that so many other actors also portrayed Dylan in this film. The music was great, and it was interesting to travel back to the '60's and early '70's of my youth. But I was too tired to get more than half way through so I will reserve my final opinion for a later date. The film was a New York Times Critic's Pick and Wikipedia provides an in-depth article on Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) if you want to reminisce about his songs and artistic achievements. I wish I still had a turntable!

...(one day later) Cate Blanchett is absolutely amazing. I'm starting to think that this is a really great movie although I still haven't seen it through to the end. It's a collage, really... of charachers, of images. Director Todd Haynes also did Far From Heaven starring Julianne Moore (who also plays a friend of Dylan) and if you want to digress, here's an ArtForum article that I found interesting. It discusses the director's use of color in Far From Heaven, and his skill is very evident in I'm Not There... like watching old news clips and looking at color-shifted photos from the 60's.

The Artist and Her Cat

Here I am dressed in dots with my surrogate cat. It is one of those awful fakes made of rabbit fur adorned with little pink felt ears. Back then I was denied a real one so I made do. Today I share my life with two wonderful live ones: Miss Pearl (age 12) and Mica (age 5). Last night I was talking with a new friend about cats and their energy and I tried to describe the painting by surrealist Remedios Varo (couldn't for the life of me recall her name!) called "Sympathy." I'd like to paint my own version of Varo's work (originally titled "The Madness of the Cat") picturing myself and Mica. A few years back, I did a collage of my grandmother Blanche and her cat Mickey (shown below). Poor cat probably hated me as a young child. I was always trying to get him to sit on my lap! For more about Varo, Into the Mystic - Surrealist Painter Remedios Varo is a lengthy article, originally published in the April 2001 issue of Art in America, that you can read online. And I recommend the book "Remedios Varo: Unexpected Journeys" by Janet A Kaplan for an in-depth story of her live and art. The illustrations are fantastic!

Movie Time

I live in a small town, miles from any movie theater. (My house is down in a swampy valley just about a half mile away on the other side of the hill shown in the the picture above.) Also, I don't have a television. So, what do I do for entertainment, you might wonder. Watch DVD's! And I just got five new ones in the mail this afternoon: The Rape of Europa; Kurt Schwitters; I'm Not There; Crimes of the Heart; and Issue 6 of Indie Arts: The DVD Magazine. So this will be short... I'm off to the movies!

...(one day later) The one I picked to watch last night was the only one of the bunch that I have seen before: Crimes of the Heart. Diane Keaton, Sissy Spacek and Jessica Lange are the Magrath sisters. Based on a Pulitzer Prize play by Beth Henley, the dialog is riveting, tragic and hilarious. Love the architectural details of their victorian southern house. I most identified with the oldest sister, Lenny (played by Diane Keaton). Must be her wardrobe which could have come straight from my closet!

Feng Shui Mishaps at the Library

Two of my latest pieces, both combinations of collage and acrylic painting, are part of "The Art Group" show now through December 5th at the Gafney Library. They are spin-offs (I'm not sure if I actually like that term) of one of my earliest collages, "Feng Shui Mishap No. 20" . The first, "Feng Shui Mishap No. 665" (8x10 inches) is pictured above. It was done more or less as a study. I figured I'd start with a little corner first, and if that worked out OK, I'd go for the whole thing.

The second piece (16x20 inches) is called "Avaricious Transgressor (Feng Shui Mishap No. 666)". I have to admit that I surprised myself with this one, and although that big red cross in the middle started feeling like a big mistake, by the time I finished I was glad I kept it there. I went slowly, learned a lot in the process, and even managed to sneak in a few dots!

Re: Messages and Magic

Yes, I'm thinking most definately a bride!

Messages & Magic

American Art Review (Vol. XX No. 6 2008) was in my mailbox today and that's where I read about the show titled "Messages & Magic: 100 Years of Collage and Assemblage in American Art" on view through January 25, 2009 at the Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan Wisconsin. The article is illustrated by a photo of a collage by Felipe Jesus Consalvos. The collage is titled: "Search for Understanding." It has a beautiful cigar band boarder framing an old sepia-toned photograph of a woman in a white dress... a nurse one might conclude from the anatomical bust (added by the artist) sitting on a table to her left. On closer inspection she looks more like a bride with a veil, but it's hard to tell for sure. Her face is obscured by a pasted-on fox head. There is a man in his underwear about to do a hand-stand in front of her and he's wearing the ubiquitous head of George Washington cut from a dollar bill. Felipe Jesus Consalvos was born in Cuba in 1891 and died in Philadelphia. You can best see his work at the Fleisher/Ollman Gallery in that same city.