Most of what I use in my collages comes from the negative or background spaces in photos. I like to be sure that any image I use in my collage artwork is not clearly from a specific source -- so I am usually working with abstract parts from a larger image. In addition to bins of ripped out imagery, I keep a stash of magazines that I flip through over and over to find the next "right" piece. The one in the photo is so ripped up that several different layers of pages are now revealed. If you crop it in your mind's eye, the upper right quarter of the page (and layers behind) could be a found collage of sorts. It's always fun to see the layering that is created by the remaining parts of magazines. (Sort of like an altered book...) When they have little left to offer, the magazines sadly go into the recycling bin. Flipping through the lacy remnants one last time, I can usually recall the visual elements they have donated to multiple projects!
Studio
Col • laboratory
in Studio
I see my studio as a collage laboratory and also like the word association with Colorado and collaboration, both of which inform my work. So that's how I got the subhead name for this blog... at least until I come up with a better one!
This piece is a portion of a collaborative work, one that got me really interested in collage. (I had been intrigued for a long time but hadn't done much about it.) Then in the late '90s I was at the International Design Conference in Aspen (now the Aspen Design Summit). The conference was focused on the human body and I signed up for a workshop on illustrating the body, moderated by Braldt Bralds.
A group worked together on a project -- each of us had a section of "Adam and Eve" which was roughly outlined on two 4 x 8 foot boards, each cut into 1.5-ish x 4 foot sections. We coordinated with the artists/designers who had work adjacent to ours so that the bodies fit somewhat together in the end when the pieces were assembled. But anything went as far as medium. My assignment was Eve's feet. I used all kinds of freebie materials from Aspen Magazine to hotel brochures, etc. and thinned Elmer's glue to assemble my contribution to the whole. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed the abstraction that necessarily came along with working with the materials at hand. Somewhere (in the archives?) I have a photo of the whole thing assembled... I got a great response to my work, it was fun, and part of what started me on the collage journey!
Full Load
in Studio
I should have taken a photo of the back of my car this weekend... fully loaded with magazines courtesy of artist Leslie Allen and her husband! Lots of beautiful art magazines to sift and sort through, then recycle the unusable portions. (My husband, who was simultaneously trying to clean out the basement, was not too sure about all these incoming materials... but they will be great.) Leslie has been contributing magazines to my cause ever since we met in Dale Chisman's abstract painting class at the Art Student's League.
Rrrrrrrip
in Studio
I just wanted to thank those of you who save interesting "junk" mail, papers and magazines for me to use in my collage pursuits. My family often teases me about the piles (I'm used to them) and the incessant sound of rip-rip-ripping as I sift through them on quiet winter nights! I have to admit that, on occasion, I am sucked into reading an article on a subject I would never have imagined, in a magazine I would never normally have run across. (Sort of like surfing the web, only more tactile!)