It’s been crazy busy here at Collage Your World! I can’t believe it’s already June! Here are some collage tidbits I’ve been saving for you!
Vincent Van Gogh: “Blossoming Almond Tree, Saint Remy”, Oil on canvas, circa 1890.
Ottawa Summer Exhibitions: David, Van Gogh & Me!
This summer our city is graced with the presence of exhibitions from two great painters and one collage artist: Vincent Van Gogh (who needs no further introduction), David Kearn (who familiarized me with plein air painting last summer) and me! This summer, the eagerly awaited Van Gogh: Close Up Exhibition will be featured at the National Gallery of Canada. A fine portraitist as well as landscape painter, David will be featuring his portrait work and those of his students at the Shenkman Art Centre until August 26, 2012. Be sure to check out his Break A Brush Blog for more on the show. I’ll be exhibiting two pieces: “Losing My Religion” and “Black & White” in a group show at the Canadian Indian Gharana Festival (June 22-24) at the Shenkman Centre as well. See my Exhibitions page for more details. I’ll be sure to have reviews of these shows later on this summer.
Gillian Jansen, Mixed Media, Artist Trading Card, 3.5 x 2.5 inches, 2012. Text: “Rain, Jeweller of the spider’s web”. The image was inspired by a line from the poem “Prayer” by Dana Gioia.
Gillian’s ATC: A Beaded Beauty!
This April I exchanged Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) with a group of virtual friends from abroad: Gillian Jansen, Irene Rafael and Diane Salter. It’s our second exchange and I swear the cards keep on getting more marvelous each trade! Our triple theme (because yours truly was doing the selecting) was fantasy/transformation/unfurl – stuff that emerges when art is at its best. Gillian’s creative eye, inspired by the play of light on nature, spied early morning dew drops on a spider’s web and transformed them into this jewel-like treasure (see above). I love the painted texture of her card and beautiful beads she’s sewn into it. Gillian’s abstracted view of nature also reminds me of star-like diamonds in the night sky. I’m so lucky to have it in my ATC collection! Drawing on personal experiences of transformation and aspects of beauty in art respectively, Irene’s and Diane’s ATCs were equally remarkable. Diane mentioned we were lucky to have each other as mirrors to inspire each other and she’s so right! For further inspiration, be sure to check out Irene’s and Diane’s blogs.
#10 of my eleven collage pages for the sewing/text/maps June 2012 book project.
My No Sew June Book Project
This is the second year I’m participating in a book page project hosted by a local group of artist friends. We make pages for an art book based on the number of people participating in the project; this year eleven people are participating so everyone had to make eleven pages each! Our theme: sewing/text/maps was also chosen by your favourite scatter-brained collagist (me!) – I had such a hard time choosing! I was relieved that everyone, including those of us who can’t sew for beans (!), decided to go with my theme. For my pages, I chose several elements: Chinese newsprint, handmade papers, patterned tissues papers, map fragments and a favourite magazine image; I went to town playing with various compositional arrangements of these pieces. Here’s a sample of one of my favourite pages. I feel they ended up looking like small visual poems. Oh, did I mention I cheated a little bit by using a piece of handmade paper I found that was already machine stitched – proving if you look hard enough you’ll always find a way to work around the skills you don’t have!
Student collage in progress...
Back to School: Collaging a New World
This month I assisted a grade six elementary school class with a “footprint” themed project. Through collage, the students captured aspects of the world they wanted to change. Their dramatic pieces included key topics such as: poverty, racism and discrimination. At their age I remember shunning the daily news. I was surprised and impressed by how politically informed these students were as well as how engaged they were about transforming the social/political scene. I hope these ideals stay with them for a long time. When I see a project like this it gives me so much hope for the future. Thanks to their teacher Catherine for having the foresight to see how collage can be used to give voice to these important global concerns.
Imagine: My Summer Reading
Some of you may have already read my enthusiastic recommendation of Jonah Lehrer’s: Imagine: How Creativity Works on Facebook. Art making thrives on the concept of invention so I’m always intrigued to know more about the subject. I bought the book and am hooked! Lehrer gives plenty of insight into the social history of how various folks (CEOs, scientists, salesmen, artists, musicians, writers, surfers, bartenders, etc… the list is incredible!) came up with their most lucrative ideas. Why is this such a big deal?! Well, in getting to know their creative mind sets and environments, you too will be able to harness some of their powers to create a space in which your imagination can thrive. This is easily one of the most inspiring books I’ve ever read; it’s a great companion to another book on creativity I recommended last year by Shelley Carson: Your Creative Brain. Best of all its easy summer reading that will open up a whole new world of possibilities for you. I highly recommend it. Also see Lehrer’s brilliant Youtube video about his book.
Well, it’s back to the studio for me! I hope some of these collage tidbits motivate you to take some creative action!
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