Michelle Casey, "Secret Garden", Collage/Mixed Media, 5 x 7 inches, February 2014
I’m excited to share some great news with you. This spring a collage of mine, “Secret Garden” was selected to be published in Lesley Riley’s new book: Inspirational Quotes Illustrated: Art and Words to Motivate!* After admiring and drawing inspiration from her work and methods for a number of years, it was a real high to be a part of this project. My work is included among those of many artists from various backgrounds (fibre, assemblage, digital artists, etc.). Our goal for the book was to create a piece which revolved around a quote.
As some of you know, I’ve been collecting quotes for some time now on Pinterest. Although it was hard to pick only one great quotation to work with, I finally did! Guided by my intuition and a statement by author John Green, I had no idea pre-conceived idea of what my final piece would be… I let the paper fragments on my studio table guide me as to where they would go! Green’s statement: “If you don’t imagine, nothing ever happens at all” intrigued me enough to explore the visual challenge his words presented. In a nut shell I let my activities in my studio take me on a journey back to my childhood. Working with a children’s fashion magazine; tracings from Johanna Basford’s Secret Garden colouring book (which I had been working in at the time) and experimenting with my new Tim Holtz Distress markers, I began to contemplate the implications of the quote and its relationship to collage… for me it’s always such a magical and surreal process. Whenever I collage I feel like a magician presenting the viewer the various pieces I work with and then letting it all come together in their imaginations.
You know, I haven’t entered work in a competition for a while or put out work for publication so I really appreciated the opportunity Leslie’s project extended to me. If you’ve never done so before, I highly encourage you to take a chance and apply for competitions so you can get your art work out there for all to see. As well as great potential local, national and international coverage for my art and/or business, the opportunity to connect with others who are just as passionate about art as me is the greatest bonus of doing what I do. It creates so many new learning experiences and opportunities to network with some phenomenal artists.
Copies of Lesley’s book are available on Amazon; see link: Inspirational Quotes Illustrated… for more details as well as a sneak peek of some pages – it’s pretty amazing! If you have creative friends who love to collect books about quotations this would make a unique and wonderful Christmas or Birthday gift. Speaking of Christmas, this winter I’ll be sending out a postcard print of my collage to all those you whose real world addresses I have… if you’d like to be included, please send me your mailing address. Special thanks to my photographer Peter Farris-Manning for dealing with the challenges photographing this piece presented… he did such a great job!
*Note: The book will be available in mid November 2014.
Visual References for Secret Garden Collage:
Mountainscape fragment from photo by Hiroyuki Masuyama, Sleek Magazine, 32, Winter 2011/12.
Headless girl fragment from photo by Karal Balas from H&M ad in Milk magazine (English edition), no. 37, September 2012.
Flower drawing fragment by Johanna Basford from Secret Garden: Laurence King Publishing, 2013.
Head of young girl fragment may have been found in above-mentioned Milk magazine reference in a smaller ad.
Other Related Links:
Awakening the Secret Garden Within
Awakening the Secret Garden Within Part II
Artist Mentors I: Paul Lowry, Madman or Genius
Thanks, Wendy! 🙂