Speaking Your Language!

Cut. Tear. Paste. Glue. Assemblage. Found Objects. Vintage. Paper. Image. Ephemera. Dada.

Are these words part of your daily vocabulary? Do you get all weak in the knees when you discover vintage newspapers and letters? When in public, do you collect "found objects" in parking lots, along curbs, in shopping carts...knowing you WILL be able to incorporate them in a piece of work?

Then you, my friend, share the love of Collage and our secret language!

The National Collage Society formed to promote and support the art of Collage. Based in Ohio, their exhibits are a showcase of international art, receiving entries from the US and abroad. And each month the Society spotlights a member artist. I was thrilled to find I was selected for the month of May. To view my feature please visit here

To find out more about the Society and to become a member, please visit.

After all, it's wonderful meeting people who speak your language!

Good Things Come in Small Packages!

Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' - Collage

For those of you who live near the Quinlan Visual Arts Center in Gainesville, Georgia you are in for a treat!

The Center is hosting this year's National Collage Society 19th Annual Postcard Show. Comprised of small works, the exhibit features art no larger or smaller than 4" x 6" in size. The theme for the show is: "Expansive Art can be Found in a Small Format."

The opening reception is Thursday, April 14th at 5:30 pm. The exhibit runs through Saturday, June 4th, 2016.

My entry this year is "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'". Using a weaving technique, I brought together art paper, hand-made paper, an ad from a trade magazine and husks...which I acquired from a local cornfield.

As with all NCS exhibits, the show promises to be a visual smörgåsbord with something to delight everyone's palate.

To view the exhibition opening, gallery photos and more please visit the Quinlan Visual Arts Center online.

The show certainly supports the axiom "Good things come in small packages"!

How Do Your Dreams Influence Your Art?

HUGO'S XYZ - COLLAGE

I love returning to Art History. It is a comforting place...like a warm sweater on a cold night...nurturing, enveloping, familiar. And every time I return I discover something new and inspiring.

The National Collage Society hosts a Postcard Exhibit annually. April 2, 2015 to May 12, 2015 marks the 18th Annual Exhibit. The entries, all 4" x 6" postcard size, are on show at the Tucson Jewish Community Center Art Gallery in Tuscon, Arizona.

Lately I have read a lot of Art History books and articles. They have influenced my thinking while awake and asleep. And oh the dreams! One night I found myself at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, listening to Hugo Ball reciting a Sound Poem. Like most dreams, images juxtaposed themselves without thought of cohesion...just random images shooting through the kaleidoscope of my nocturnal mind.

I felt my Muse was encouraging me to return to the world of the Sound Poem. And so began my entry for the show.

The substrate for the collage is a canvas board. The photo of Hugo in his shaman's hat and Cubist costume took center stage. I paid homage to his poem by incorporating the title KARAWANE. I added metallic acrylic paint sponged on to canvas. It was finished by with a Swiss postage stamp, and a Dada inspired pointing finger and the word Cacodylic.

The Society chose sixteen winners from the entries. I am delighted and honoured to be among them. You can view the collage work chosen here.

Musings by day and night shape our world as artists. How do your dreams influence your Art?

What Lurks Between The Covers?

Pulp - Collage

Books. I love them. All of them. From the tiny mini books sold at the registers in stores to the lavish coffee table publications, each have a place in my heart and my life.  The printed word. I can't live without it.

I can chart the years by my books, and I can usually remember where I purchased them and why. I note cities I've visited not only by name but by the bookstores they possess. And Heaven on earth to me is a Public Library.

While trying to reorganise my bookshelves, I came across my small collection of pulp or pocket-book fiction. Although normally associated with the mid twentieth century, Argosy Magazine started the genre in 1896. Portable, accessible, and cheap to produce and purchase, the books were available at bus and train stations, drugstores, and newsstands. Westerns, War, Detective, Science Fiction, Horror, Romance...no topic was taboo. Who could resist titles like I Am A Woman, Murder In Paradise, Nude In Mink, or Halfway To Hell with suggestively illustrated covers guaranteed to bring in sales?

Tereska Torres' Women's Barracks, "the frank autobiography of a French girl soldier", was just what I had in mind for my collage.  The substrate for the collage is illustration board.  I cut the cover into strips and wove it together with art paper, handmade paper, and text from within the book.

Pulp is now part of the National Collage Society's 17th annual Postcard Exhibit, and is one of the award-winning collages. I am delighted...and honoured...to be in such fine company.

For me, pulp fiction will forever conjure romantic images of steamy train stations and glimpses of forbidden lives with each turn of the page.  So, what does lurk between the covers?

Another Real Life Adventure!

Jodie & Millie's Real Life Adventure. Collage.

Life can take us places we never dreamed of…or only visited in our dreams.

Jodie and Millie’s adventure has taken them to the National Collage Society’s Twenty-Ninth Annual Juried Exhibit. Over five hundred works were submitted. In addition to the United States, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, Canada and France were represented. The jury selected ninety-six pieces for the exhibition.

I am honoured and delighted to say Jodie and Millie are in fine company.

To view the exhibit, please visit the National Collage Society 29th Annual Exhibit website.

When we follow our Muse, anything is possible!