Friday, October 30, 2015

Weekly Quick Collage: Sacrament



Sacrament
collage, 5.5 x 5.5 inches


This one is more of a "traditional" Surrealist piece than what I usually do. There is no intended meaning, so you are free to make one up yourself if you wish! It's the only thing I could come up with that's sort of weird and "Halloween-ish".


Happy Halloween, everybody!





Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Weekly Quick Collage: Precision of Nature



Precision of Nature
collage, 6.5 x 5.5 inches



 “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”                                                                      ~ Albert Einstein





"Nature is not a place to visit, it is home."                                               ~ Gary Snyder





Thursday, October 15, 2015

Searching for Roy G Biv: Gray

In our search for Roy G Biv, we have now come the color gray. Our hostesses, Jennifer Coyne Qudeen and Julie B Booth, had to add on some colors that aren't in the rainbow, in order to round out the year.

A statue at Spring Grove cemetery in Cincinnati displays soft, mottled grays...



Huge gray rocks at Eagle Falls in the Great Smokey Mountains...



A little footbridge at Springrove...



A towering gray rock wall beside the Cumberland River in Kentucky...



An old, abandoned building (corn crib?) on what remains of a farm in rural Kentucky...



A widow on a lovely memorial chapel at Springrove...



A view of the side of that same chapel...



Shelf fungus on a log in Lewis County, Kentucky...



A fallen silvery gray leaf...



I hope you enjoyed my grays! To see what grays other participants have on display, please visit Julie B Booth or Jennifer Coyne Qudeen.




Friday, October 9, 2015

Out of the Darkness


Out of the Darkness
ingredients: vintage book covers, vintage book pages, vintage watch movement, other found objects, feather, stitching, metallic oil crayon, graphite;  10.5 x 15 inches



"Art is a wound turned into light."                                                                      ~ Georges Braque
   

                                                                                          
I made this piece at a time when I was too upset to really think about what I was doing. I just started ripping stuff apart and gluing it on; the process was entirely intuitive. I know it expressed my desire and hope to leave that dark place and be healed. Perhaps when something important is lost, it can be replaced by something even better. I had to believe that. And I know that making this was a part of my healing process. Art has transformative power.

As someone who at one time considered becoming an art therapist, I found the whole process of making this piece to be eye-opening.  Not that I haven't had experiences of art-making that were like meditations, like being on a  completely different 'mental plane' than normal; but this piece was accompanied by a great release of emotion. Also, I have little memory of actually making it; I couldn't tell you what I did first, second, third, etc.

Art therapist and author Shaun McNiff says, "Like dreams, art works are surprising syntheses of elements on the threshold of consciousness that present themselves. The artist prepares the space and lets the controlling mind step aside. Artistic cognition responds and takes advantage of accidents, chance, lines, forms , figures, and interactions that emerge "unwatched." (Art as Medicine: Creating a Therapy of the Imagination")

Though I never purposefully set out to engage in any sort of therapy (as I didn't here), sometimes it just turns out that way. Does this ever happen to you?  I'd be interested to hear what other artists think about this.



                                                                                                           
"Art washes away from the soul the dust of every day life.”                             ~ Pablo Picasso






Friday, October 2, 2015

Weekly Quick Collage: Abstract II



Abstract II
collage,  7.5 x 6 inches

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
                                                                                                                                ~ Pablo Picasso


I'm definitely taking Picasso's advice on this one. I have been trying to push myself to work more abstractly, which is not really my strongest suit, so to speak. Really, to be clear, I should say I'm attempting to make work that's non-objective, meaning that it's not based on real objects, whereas abstract work is. Art history.com says, " Nonobjective art is another way to refer to Abstract art or nonrepresentational art. Essentially, the artwork does not represent or depict a person, place or thing in the natural world. Usually, the content of the work is its color, shapes, brushstrokes, size, scale, and, in some cases, its process."

Though my work isn't completely "realistic" by any means, and I wouldn't necessarily call it abstract,  it usually depicts objects that are based on real ones, i.e. butterflies, flowers, birds, faces, etc.  I guess it walks a line somewhere in between. So I thought it would be fun to do something that's focused on colors, shapes, and movement rather than recognizable things. I don't think this is easy at all, but it was fun, if not entirely successful. And I think I'd like to try more of this in the future.

What do you think? Is making non-objective work easy for you, or difficult? Any insights or thoughts concerning how to make it easier?


Thanks for looking, and have a wonderful weekend!