ABECEDARY - "S"

26 of my "S" submission for the ABECEDARY

First of all - what is a ABECEDARY?  It is a book with each page representing a letter of the alphabet.  The Book Arts Roundtable is my book  making group in New Jersey and our collaborative this year was an ABECEDARY.  I was given the letter S and I was told to design a card and make 26 copies to swap with everyone else, each one, given a specific letter. In the end we would all get a deck of cards of the entire alphabet.  

I decided to keep this as simple as possible.  I did not want to labor at printing out all those cards, so much can go wrong when you are printed something out on a computer, so I wanted to do something artful.  

So One afternoon I "painted" S curves with sumi ink.  After painting the image I waited 5-10 seconds and washed it off in the sink. Sumi has lacquer in it and some of the edges dry black, while other parts wash off and just leaves gray.  This was a lot of fun!  I was playing music and found that I got bolder in my brush strokes when some Jazz came on.

But what to do on teh back side. It was pouring rain one day and I lit a candle and got the idea to burn the edges. This was a lot of fun and I just loved the edges!  In fact, I got so into it, I scorched or sooted up the backs!

The picutre above is all of my 26 cards feathered out to see all the edges. This was photo'd before I handed them out.

On-Line Composition Class

I'm taking an on-line composition class titled Dynamic Composition.  The first assignment was to use a very restricted color way and only to use squares and rectangles.  I went to a Joseph Albers book for inspiration and basically copied 4 of his designs. The teach said - keep trying.  I liked this one in its simplicity.  So many of the other students glommed on so many elements - I thought mine was pretty pure!

Content Collages

It's been awhile.  Vacation, then my wet studio in the basement has been rehabbed. It was very disruptive, but it looks great now.  I am still waiting for two tables to be made, but I do have a large table that I can use for now.

Omega

I created this collage in a meeting with my fellow collage makers. We were given the task of using text. Rather than starting with black text on white - I went with white text on black.

This next collage was much bigger - but somehow it created itself. I love to squint my eyes and see the pattern I have created using the light and dark areas.  

  

Digital Collage - Creative Fuel

Creative Fuel

I do try to use my own photographs in digital collage and I recall taking lots of shots of antique trains, for some reason I love them, but its probably more about the shape of the train tracks vanishing in the distance.  The overlay of words is Billy Collin's poem  "The Last Cigarette".  I always interpreted the cigarette as fuel to creativity therefore the train is travelling "into" the old typewriter (my Mother in Law's).  

Artist Book - Bridge (Pages 15,16,17)

Artist Book - Bridge (Pages 12,13,14)

Artist Book - Bridge (Pages 9,10,11)

Artist Book - Bridge (Pages 6,7,8)

Artist Book - Bridge (Pages 3,4,5)

Artist Book - Bridge (Fabric Collage & Pages 1 & 2)

While I go up to the Cape for a week, I thought I would upload my book called "Bridge".  The book's inspiration was this Fabric Collage, but after I finished it I realized that I had a story that I needed to write about it, so here it is.

Bridge

Paper Collage - Legs

Legs

This piece is a paper collage - No manipulation available to the artist, and once you have glued a piece down - it is permanent!  What I was really trying to do here was to "paint with images" merging and aligning them.  Squint your eyes and get rid of all the details, now THAT'S what I was going for.  See - all the lights are together and all the darks are connected.  I know - you want to know "what I was on".  

Digital Collage - Time Deck

Time Deck

Something about Sarah Bernhardt intrigues me.  She is wearing a helmet of time pieces.  I remember I got the shot of the sand castle from a book on Ancient China.  What the heck is she doing in it?

Quilt - Underneath the Sea

Underneath the Sea

While transitioning from a traditional quilter to a more contemporary maker, I combined lots of techniques.  This had patchwork in it, but also dyed and painted fabrics.  

Artist Book - Nightmare - Part 7

Nothingness

Past Presence

Artist Book - Nightmare - Part 6

Shaking the Tree

Avarice

Digital Collage - Fragile

Fragile

I guess I was feeling fragile when I created this digital collage.  Birth, life, death and all of that!  I recognize the church steeple which is at my favorite cemetery in Truro, MA, but I guess I was looking for generic .  I do remember that the inspiration of this was the glass slide that I had smashed and I liked the cracked pattern it created - I think that's what started this piece. 

Digital Collage - Nobody Knows Better

Nobody Knows Better

This is a personal piece I did of my brother Ted.  He struggles with alcoholism every day, although it has been 30 years since he has had a drink.  I admire him for that!  The older gal with a bottle of hooch was my grandmother "Ruth" and the little boy is my Dad.  

Artist Book - Nightmare Part 5

Recede

Foreboding Memories

Refugee

Artist Book - Nightmare - Part 4

I'm posting more of "Nightmare" because I have been told that you are enjoying it. This is the gruesome part, so if you have a weak stomach you might want to skip todays post!  If you are sardonic - enjoy!

 Slippery Pit

 Annihilation

Dichotomy

Digital Collage - Eyeball Doodle

Eyeball Doodle

I forget what inspired this doodle, but I do remember I created this piece when I learned about embossing texture in Photoshop.  Wow - I did get so excited about that tool!

Digital Collage - Self Portrait

Self Portrait

I loved these boots, but somehow "crowned" myself with a bunch of distorted dancing crones - what's with that?  

Digital Collage - The Flavor of Yesterday Today Tomorrow

The Flavor

When I was teaching myself Photoshop I joined a couple of Yahoo Digital Collage groups. I have amassed quite a morgue of photo's that I would drag into a file and make a composition. Sometimes I was "given" the photos to use, other times I would use my own.  I recall many a Friday night, I would sit in front of the computer with a glass of wine and let things fly. This is one of the compositions that I created.  

Digital Collage - Peace

Peace

This was a Christmas card I sent out one year (or at least created it for that intention).  The background was a crowd of sun bathers at a beach.  The sumo wrestler and the wolf are two very different images, but I was trying to say - even though we are all very different, can't we get along?

Artist Books - Nightmare -Part Three

"Disintegration" Page 7

"Chimerical Cruise" Page 8

"Duplicity" Page 9

I tried to have a continuing line through the entire book to "connect" all of the pages.  Once I had the pages established in an order, i then tried to connect the images from one page to another, remember - this is an accordion book, so they were all connected in one flowing line.  The other cool thing about this book structure is that it had holes poked in one page to the next, so I could use the underlying page image - if it worked. Only someone who was turning the pages could see this "extra" layer.  

For instance, on Page 7, the little boy looking through the window is on a different page and only revealed through the window on page 7. It is very cool, but also a little hard to get it to work.  On page 8, you can see silhouetted people who are also on a different page, and then on Page 9 - the little animal is seen through a window.  It's probably me, hiding from the couple draped in snake. Trust me, a shrink would have a field day with this piece!

Artist Book - Nightmare - Part Two

 "Tunnel Confusion" Page 4

"Spiral Question" Page 5

"Serene Anger" Page 6

NIGHTMARE

Lots of imagery - enlightenment, tunnel vision, good and evil,  a journey, confusion, doorways, the end of the world, death, money, sorrow, money, humor - its all in there if you choose to look..

Digital Collage - A Brush in a Glass

Brush in a glass

One of my digital collages.  I liked this one so much I printed it on fabric, so stay tuned to see how "that" came out!

Artist Book - Nightmare - Part One

"Mistral" Page 1

"Eruption" Page 2

"Pipe Dream" Page 3

NIGHTMARE

This artist book is a 2 sided accordion book with a paper collage that measures about 4 feet long that runs front AND back! I had a lot to say in this one - but it was written in visual terms.  It is about the death of my Mother and how badly people behaved during this very difficult time. Not only did I have to protect her from her adult children and try to assure her that she did a wonderful job in her life, but after she died I had to protect her money and fulfill her every dying wish!  

This book helped me release some of the pain.  I survived, but not without a lot of battle scars.