Showing posts with label mixed media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mixed media. Show all posts

Monday, January 27, 2020

Ephemeral Conversations - to Stimulate the Universe!

Well, I'm on a word kick. Or rather, an "Ephemeral Conversations" kick.

"To Stimulate the Universe" 11" x 14" “We are poets! Our function is to stimulate the universe, hunting for warped songs and tertiary spacetime music.”
My latest mixed media/visual poetry experiment! This started as a DEMO piece for my materials and process students. It got me all excited to play with materials. ____________________________ I am continuing to work on a new body of work called "Ephemeral Conversations" - A playful merging of mixed media and ephemera that I've been collecting over the years, including images for art collages collected by my late mother who passed in 2011. The themes of the work dive into dream states, psychology and contemporary myth and fantasy.
It is also a play on words. Not only am I using the occasional ephemeral materials from found papers (old pharmacy notes, stamps, pamphlets, bits of wallpaper), but I'm also using words from reading materials. Some of the words are direct and meant to be viewed as a message from the artist to the viewer. Some of the words are subdued and half hidden by other media, meant to add visual atmosphere - reflecting the way you might hear (but not quite understand) snippits of conversation in a public place.
My collection of materials began when I in college. At that time, my mother had boxes of materials she would use for her own collage and assemblage work. She collected old and damaged books on medicine and industry, vintage magazines, childrens books, maps and pamphlets. I witnessed her thought process of during this time of collecting, sorting, cutting up and using these items. When I cleaned her studio after her passing, I kept every scrap she had saved. I have the same desire to hunt for items I can use in art, and continue to add to this collection. When I use materials both myself and my mother had collected for her own art, I feel I am having an (ephemeral) conversation with her spirit as I create.
"The Tempest Whisperers" 8"x8"
I have about 8 of these 8"x8" Ephemeral Conversations now, but I need to get good photos of them! Some of the Ephemeral Conversations (And Much More!) can be seen at the Columbus Learning Center in Columbus Indiana until may 7th. I am currently involved in a show called "A Look at Relative Art; A collaborative family exhibit" with art by my Father Robert, Mother Catherine and Myself.
I really need to make a separate post about this and talk about the art of my parents.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Carousing with Destiny Finally

CAROUSING with DESTINY

I have had this poem made from cut text (various old/damaged book sources) for months. (I think I created it sometime in MAY 2019) I had it sitting between 2 pages of card stock with a book on top to keep it from shifting. Thank goodness I didn't accidentally bump the table it was on or I might have lost this whole thing. (see the picture at the very bottom to see the words arranged loosely on a black piece of cardstock.)

I was waiting for the right surface to put it on. I envisioned a collage where I would paste it. I created the collage I had in mind, but once I finished it, I felt words would only disrupt the imagery I had.

(below is the collage I had created, of the same name)



See? Words would not have worked here. I tend to find success in abstract backgrounds for my 'found poetry'. So I looked through my pages of experimental backgrounds (which generally tend to pile up when I'm having a gelli plate session) - I found one that looked promising, and filled it out with some more colors and textures, finally satisfied with the look.

FINALLY, in October, I HAD A SURFACE.

Below is the poem:
____________________________

CAROUSING WITH DESTINY

The voice of urgency trudged up clouds of remembered intensity

... it flows quite different, 
her depths gleaming, lit by endless fires, 
her place, fern-like in this world - 
this rhyming world.

From the deep valleys to ancient mountains, 
from among the twisted roots to the open spaces 
where anything might be fulfilled.

She heard her escape on the wind
across the maze into the mirror.

Carousing with destiny was like falling into an icy sea. 

That very moment she snapped, and with shaking hands
opened her door to the planet's manifestation of desire
of dreams
and gently rolling S C R E A M S.

____________________________________________

Here is what it looked like when I had the loose words just sitting on a piece of black cardstock.
It can take days for a longer poem like this to fully form.




Sunday, March 24, 2019

Tiny mixed media madness!


Greetings Friends!

Here are some fun little framed mixed media pieces. 

But let me explain something interesting about these:

1.) A friend recently brought me a bunch of secondhand little frames. I added this to my growing collection of frames I havn't used yet but it got me thinking: Perhaps its time to dive in and use them!

2.) I always find it a little frustrating dealing with frame glass. I hate cleaning them. I don't like the glare. I'm afraid if I have an unmatted mixed media piece, the acrylic or medium will stick to the glass and damage the art if one ever tries to de-frame it. SO.... I came up with a solution: do the art ON THE GLASS ITSELF. No waste, no risking cutting myself on the cleaning process, strengthens the glass, no fuss! Ok... *LESS* fuss.


PROCESS:

I coat the glass frame with tissue paper - this strengthens the glass and provides a paper-like surface for me to art on. The rest is the art process itself! All of these include some ephemera that came from my mother's collection of art bits. They are essentially part of my "Ephemeral Conversations" series. (Just tiny!)


I have provided a few closeups of the pieces unframed:



The above is an unnamed fae of mixed media. (The plastic art knife under it is angling it away from the light so I wouldn't get a shine on it)



"The King of the Practical Questions was sad"


Thats about it! Stay tuned for more updates soon.

Saturday, May 13, 2017

Mixed Media and a little Madness




I was trying to write a simple fb status update and I realized I had waaay too much to say right now, so I wiggled my typing fingers and moved from my phone to my computer.
So. First: I am REALLY enjoying my dive into mixed media. There are so many things I've played with this week, and more things I plan to play with in the coming weeks. I'm switching back and forth between 2D and 3D, and I'm interlocking so many mediums together - one informing the next.
Another joy is the fact that I have learned so much from my students as well. This semester I taught a class that involved a lot more process and mixed medias. I came up with lessons that would allow the students to stay within the perameters of the assignments, yet explore and bring in new mediums both familiar and unusual. I encouraged experimentation and new pathways. I assigned projects that got me SO CURIOUS to see what they would come up with - and I was not dissappointed! Along this path, they invariably use materials I had not considered - and I was able to add to my own arsenal of mediums and ideas. I'm proud that I had such a great group that encouraged eachother creatively - pushing to new levels with each project.

Back to my own mixed media experiments, let me run down a list: This week alone I have played with magazines and collage, oil paint, acrylic paint, watercolor, digital, tissue paper and acrylic medium, modge podge, mixed media paper, duralar paper, tone paper, hot glue assemblage with 3D pieces, tubing, nails, air dry clay, fabric scraps and stablizer paper. I've gessoed many surfaces, I just bought new air dry clay to try, as well as a green metallic lustre wax finish, tonight I'll use the sewing machine and try to bake some fimo pieces that have been waiting to add to a doll I'm manipulating. I've worked on 2D pieces, added to a shadowbox relief, and worked on some full sculptural pieces. I've rearranged parts of the studio and stared at the walls. I even got giddy when I found some lettraset in the basement. I could use those in my mystery letters!

I chatted with someone earlier - a friend at the art store - he asked what I've been doing lately/ what I'm up to and words just tumbled out of my mouth. Teaching, (almost finished - just gotta grade then I've got summers off from that!) getting prepped for my most intense convention ever (an actual big booth at GenCon!) and my mixed media explorations, my scavanging and estate/ garage sale hunting for my junk booth, and how I want to create a book - but I've only got till August - and how time is fleeting! I also have my patreon and mystery letters which I thoroughly enjoy putting together. ITS LIKE ALL MY ATOMS ARE VIBRATING SO FAST I'M GOING TO DISSOLVE INTO ANOTHER DIMENSION. Hopefully all this effort will flower into something kick butt.

SO. Wish me luck folks! I'm going to stick not just my nose to the grinder but my whole face. Aside from a small trip I want to make in mid June to CA, I'm going to just lock myself in create mode. I might need someone to drag me away on occasion just so I can get some basic human interaction before I forget how to speak without mumbling into oblivion. Much love all around! 

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Sow the Seed

SOME MUSIC, SOME PROSE, AND SOME ART
Listen to this as you read, let it sow a seed ....
 (XX - INTRO)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VPKfacgXao

Winter is approaching. My time is filled with class preparations and thoughts of the future and my car begins to smoke again. I wonder how I will ever make it to the mountain I wish to be at, so seemingly far away. No matter how far I get, no matter how fast I run, my destination is ever so far away. The years tick by, the money runs just as dry as it did 10 years ago.
I don't want to look back, I don't want to see the miles I've gone already, I don't want the appreciation of my travel to slow my progress, - again - I don't want to sigh and relax too much, for fear complacency will seep further into my crackling dreams, for all I've done, it seems... I circle back again, to the same old memes, the patterns of myself a never ending fractal of routines ... expanding into larger and more complicated seasons, the details engorging with added responsibilities and reasons.
Cheer for me fiends... As I push this boulder up the hill, over and over and over again.

-------

Today's creativity lay in creating projects for my classes. A morphing drawing for my drawing class, and pattern explorations for the color theory and design class. I should complete my own projects, not only for samples, but for shiggles and gits.

I almost didn't make anything new, but I found a drawing I had started at the beginning of September. So I decided to finish it.

"Sow the Seed"
Pen, watercolor, white ink and white acrylic. Some colored pencil. 
4" x 8" Currently available for $40.