I Can't Stop

Diagonal Marker Cross

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

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

More Marker Dots

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.