Collage Bits and Bytes:

Michelle Casey, "My Father's Secret" (Inside) Mixed Media, ATC , May 2011

One of the greatest perks about being an artist and teacher is the wide variety of art work and ideas I get to share with students and artist colleagues/friends.  Here are a few brief related highlights of happenings here at Collage Your World…

My “Secret” ATC Trade with Wendy Southin

Some of you must be dying to hear how Wendy Southin’s “secret” themed Artist Trading Card (ATC) exchange with me went.  As you know my ATC dealt with a dream I had of a secret of my late father’s.  Some of you are probably still guessing what it must be… for a recap see My Secret ATC Trade with Wendy Southin posting.  Well, Wendy went a step further than me and created a card based on an actual family secret – courageous soul!  It turns out that her husband discovered later in his life that his great grandfather who moved to Canada from Europe had two families which he kept secret from each other! (Oh, the scandal!)  As you can imagine when this “secret” was finally revealed it was a shock to all.  Using copies of old unclaimed photos of her husband’s mysterious “other” relatives, Wendy put together a mini ATC secret family photo album for me!  Receiving “Grandpa Symonds’ Secret” was a fantastic surprise!  This antique-toned (à la Tim Holtz) beauty of a card was composed of many textured backgrounds: handwriting, old documents and musical notes; it also included fragments of fabric, patterned tape, glossy hand-coloured copies of photos and nostalgic stickers and paper scraps – it was a sight to behold and sensuous to the touch.  Thanks so much Wendy, I’m so proud to add such a personal piece of Southin family history to my ATC collection.  Also, congrats to the ever intrepid Diane Salter who eventually uncovered what my dad’s dream secret was … a son from an earlier love affair!

Wendy Southin, "Grandpa Symonds' Secret" (Inside), Mixed Media, ATC, May 2011

Sharing in the Latest Works of Past Basic Collage Students

In the past six months, it’s been exciting to receive works from former students Andrea Harrison and Jacinta Barroso.  Their work keeps growing and blossoming with each new piece they send me.  I can’t tell you how impressed I am to see these busy office professionals taking time to continue to expand their creative abilities.  Andrea’s mentioned what a great stress reliever collaging has been for her.  And, that doesn’t surprise me in the least.  Time and time again in my readings related to the brain and health, it’s been reinforced what a cathartic role art plays as a stress reliever, as well as helping us produce chemicals to boost our immune systems!  Yes, while we’re working on art, we’re also improving the health of our bodies and minds!  Here are a couple examples of the girls’ works.  Note (below) Jacinta’s use of luscious, bright colours and textures as well as romantic/nostalgic themes in “Ageless Beauty” and “Showstopper” – I’m such a Fred Astaire fan!  I love the way Andrea experiments with scale to render her image “Mixed Up” so surreal and how she explores her more introspective side in “Duluth” — wow, there’s an intriguing narrative waiting to be uncovered in this one!  Thanks for sharing ladies – I love receiving these amazing insights into your imaginations!

Jacinta Barosso, "Ageless Beauty", Collage, January 8 2011

Jacinta Barosso "Showstopper", Collage, February 20 2011

Andrea Harrison, "Mixed Up", Collage, May 2011

Andrea Harrison, "Duluth", Collage, March 2011

Group Book Page Exchange

Every year the ATC group that I’m with holds a themed book page exchange.  Everyone makes enough pages for however many people are participating in the project (ie. if there are 10 people like this year, everyone makes 10 pages each… one for everyone).  A bit of room is left (ie. half an inch) on the side of the page so the pages can be assembled by their owners.  This year the theme was “black and white”.  It was an incredible feeling to receive 10 different hand-made pages; each composition/theme exposing the unique personalities of its maker.  Page topics included: pirates, the Fibonnaci (sequence) as well as old black and white films to name a few.  Special thanks to all the artists who participated – I treasure each and every one of your black and white pages!  Here’s a sample of a page by pencil artist Sheila Cain-Sample.  I love the way she integrates her beautiful drawing of a bee into this superbly textured collage/mixed media piece.  Here images and words are not only glued on but taped with translucent, patterned or stamped tapes and even stapled!  I just love the juxtaposition of various kinds of writing on this page.  The sayings and quotes she incorporated were so inspiring and just what I needed to see after a stressful week’s work!  Amazing page Sheila!

Sheila Cain-Sample, Black & White Page, Mixed Media, May 2011

I’m Off for a Few Weeks:

For the next few weeks I’ll be devoting myself full-time to working on various aspects of my fall show at the Atrium Gallery.  I’ll miss sharing information with you all for this short period, but will be back in the full swing of things in early July 2011 with more of my collage exploits and sneak previews of some of my show pieces so stayed tuned!

Thanks for stopping by today.  Just a reminder to all my former students, devoted blog readers and any other creative souls who may stumble across this page, I’m always happy to share in your latest artistic collage or mixed media exploits!