Monday, December 24, 2018

Merry Merry! Happy Happy! Joy Joy!


Wishing all of you all good things in all ways!  and why not!!


Red Retro Christmas


The Most Wonderful Time   


        
Christmas Shoe Joy      


Circus Joy    


Be Happy

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Happy Halloween!

Oh that time of year for oooky pooky.. 




Bad Dolly Trick or Treat


And here are some previous All Hallows inspired collage

All Saints Frida
All Hallowed Ween           










Ascension


Ascension was not created for Halloween, inspired by the actual Ascension sign in Savannah, it certainly fits the bill.

Some of these images were acquired from Mischief Circus, a fantastic source of images and inspiration.  Like hey, it's called Mischief Circus after all.

Saturday, October 6, 2018

Dark Matter Series - Halloween and Dark Mysteries


Recently my husband introduced me to the term Dark Matters of the Mind.  He discovered it as the title of a book exploring all that occurs in the unseen, 'dark side of the moon' as it were, aspects of the brain.  But really isn't it such an evocative phrase??

It sequed right into the mood I've been dancing with lately and inspired me to delve into my 'dark palette' of images, many of which are associated with Halloween and dark mysteries.

Although I brought a certain emotional background to these collages, they are not really telling a specific story. Rather the images I was drawn to evoked the story that emerged.  I get to be part of the mystery as it goes along.  And in the end, I may or may not know the 'end of the story.'  



Secrets




I Still Remember The Things You said




Crow Sisters





Friday, August 24, 2018

That Jerry Boyd and Marooned on Margo


Good friend, author, artiste and more, Jerry Boyd,  is about to launch his newest venture ~ a grand compendium of his adventures in Margo in a comic book series.  Margo ~ a planet we all want to know and explore.  You'll have to wait for the series to roll out, but right now, in this very moment, you can check out and follow his Marooned On Planet Margo  Facebook page .
 
 
 




Margonaut Official Uniform






Mother Margo Nature Goddess


The Muse


 
 
And Jerry is most definitely that Jerry Boyd. Learn all about it at thatjerryboyd.com, which is Margo-full and more.  Check out  his eclectic adventure novel, Shift Happens, available, naturally, at Amazon.com
 
 
 
 

Saturday, August 11, 2018

Asheville NC 2018 Murals, Art, Collage


I recently had a lovely week in Asheville, NC, most generously gifted to us from the most Lovely Liz and the Ever-Dancing Morris.  West Asheville, where we stayed and spent most of our time,  is it's own nicely funky part of town in a city with many creative aspects.  As I am wont to do, my walk about town photos become collages, using my photos as backgrounds and collage elements extracted from them.  I call my collage while traveling my 'regional art'.  Rainy afternoons provided perfect space for playing with images.





The Traveling Dog has it's own story.  We noticed this wonderful and a bit odd dog sculpture by a front gate.  It's about 3 feet high and of course, was photo-worthy.  A day or so later, in the same neighborhood, but a block or so away, I saw another dog sculpture.  My husband thought it could surely be the same dog, but in the end we figured it was a replica. Yet the next day, we noticed that the original dog was not by the gate.  Another day or so we the dog by a house on our own block, which is several blocks from the first sighting.  So it became the Traveling Dog and in the end, a collage.  I hoped to see someone who could tells us the tale, but did not.  I even searched for dogs of west asheville on Facebook, thinking it could 'be a thing' as they say, but with no luck.

  



Traveling Dog At the Green Door collage - Asheville NC


This piece had added inspiration from our breakfast music playlist.  A greet, funky, classic diner. 


Martha and the Vandellas At the Tastee Diner collage - Asheville NC


More musicality influences!



Fleetwoods Rock N Roll Chapel and Bar collage - Asheville NC


Another wonderful dog!  Loved the poster.  The delighful headless children are from The Littlest Birds children's clothing store and the napkin holder from the home of the ultimate french fries, as well as great sandwiches, the Asheville Sandwich Shop,  All the shops featured in the collages are all along Haywood Avenue, West Asheville's main drag. Go visit and check them out.

The Odditorum- All Ages collage - Asheville NC



West Asheville is just awash with wonderful murals, painted buildings and artsy things.  Very inspiring indeed. 

  
 





  


Monday, July 2, 2018

Retro Girls. Spam and oh yeah, animal people too


Off the air  RCA TV test pattern

I realized today how old retro images from movies are in my head like a background theme; like a hometown where I used to live.  Sometimes when I take a break, I like to have a cuppa and turn on Turner Classic Movies and catch 15 minutes of a film.  The older the better - 30's, 40's 50's.  And the other day I was struck by just  how familiar those images are to me.  I spent a lot of time watching old movies on television with my Mom.  

When I was 12, I fractured my pelvis and after two weeks in traction, all you can do to let it heal, is be off it.  So I was at home for two months.  During that time I spent a lot of time watching old movies late at night until the TV went off the air and the test pattern would come on.  It is a favorite memory.  



Retro Girls features a background of clothing catalog pages from the 1940's.  Our lovely girlfriends are hand-colorized

Retro Girls collage


And hey, surely we can celebrate Spam's 70th birthday!!  Actually Spam is now 81, but I came across images of this celebratory can recently and loved it.  Spam makes people laugh and Monty Python immortalized it in skit and song, but actually it made a nice addition to K-rations for a lot of GIs during World War II, is still beloved in Hawaii and by other aficionados and is my husband's request for his birthday breakfast every year.  The core image in the collage is a photo of the actual birthday can; amplified and altered a bit, of course.

Spam is 70 collage


And lastly, my little town had a classic old-timey carnival to benefit the volunteer fire department. I loved to see all the classic amusements from my childhood, but the 'lemon' lemonade stand really got my eye.  My retro people have a little twist, but they are a happy at-the-carnival family.


Lemonade collage



Sunday, June 3, 2018

Good Days, Bad Days


Ups, downs, all around.  Good day. Bad day.

Strong Women ~ Be Them

Turns out, versions of these t-shirts are available from many sellers, but I liked HumanUnlimited best. Check out the entire site.




Art Fail

The painter in this collage is altered from an image I found along the way.  I tried to find attribution using Google image search, but Google decided that the key factor was Polka Dots and that is all it found.  So unknown artist to me, thank you for your inspiration and helping me capture my mood upon a day.

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

YELLOW!


Our gallery, Shenandoah Valley Art Center, has a monthly theme for the member artists, often a color.  This month the color was Yellow.  Yellow is a favorite color of mine, not in clothing, but in nature and things.  I always respond to Yellow.

My first response to the theme was to recall a collage I had on hand, which features a wonderful yellow-dressed woman.  Synchronistically, the day before I read of the yellow theme, I found another image of a woman in yellow which also inspired me. I then decided to mat both of these in yellow for the gallery theme. Yellow!

But Yellow had caught my mind, so I continued on with the Yellow theme.  I have a feeling what has emerged as a Yellow series will continue on.  You can't beat a color that always makes you smile.


Yellow Gothic collage




Yellow Spoke Her Name collage



Imagine Inventing Yellow collage





Yellow Hearted collage
inspiration from Kara Bullock Art

Monday, March 26, 2018

Birthday's, Old Photos & Randomness


I recently had a significant birthday and leading up to it, I spent some time amongst my old photos and certain ones evoked memories that felt just right to capture in collage.

The 'me' in this photo captured a very free feeling and I decided an altered me from a Then, along with my totems and symbols, was  also perfect for being in this Now.

Spiraled collage





The original photo in this collage is of me fishing with my Dad; one of my favorite photos of us. The background is the Kiddieland on the boardwalk in Wildwood, N.J., our family's summer vacation place.  I've always loved to be renewed by that feisty girl's vibe.  I know she's still in here with me all these decades later.






I collect images all the time.  Wandering through Pinterest is a great bazaar of options and you can save them to your "Boards' and never worry about space or cost.  And there are days I just wander through my image files and see what 'pops' for me that day.  I've done a series of collages I call Anonymous Content, because they don't express an internal theme, but rather, emerge just from images I have on hand.  This collage began that way with the image of the drawing of a face, but once I came upon the Broken Crayons text, that started to orient the piece and so Anonymous became Broken Crayons. And some days I need to remember Broken Crayons Still Color.

Broken Crayons Collage



Thursday, March 1, 2018

Thinking of Mom


My mother, Rose, left us for the Otherwhere on a February 29th, a Leap Year.  There is something fitting to her personality that she let go on a day that only comes every four years.


Mom February 29th collage

Monday, February 5, 2018

Savannah One More Time


Savannah continues to inspire me to be a 'regional artist' - in that the place itself with its historic, grand and funky architecture, continues to catch my eye and send me on quest for complimentary [to me, at least] images and components. Oh, that collage journey.

This collage begins with an interior shot of our place here which, yes, does include the Horse head; exaggerated a bit in size here, but not very much,  The actual horse head sculpture is made of resin and quite commanding.  I was fooling around with altering the original image and this version felt nicely eerie to me, so a collection of revenants seemed apropos.  The ghostly ladies are altered versions of couture models from a Christian Dior show.  Perhaps the fashion house itself was going for an eerie theme. 



Jones Street Revenants collage ~ Savannah




Found Art all around town.

          

















And these two, found along the way,  have sat by the laptop for the duration.  

The cats are the business card for pet portraits by Michelle Perez @ TheWigglyPair.etsy.com



The Pup had been cut up, but I found just enough words to google
 and find the work of David Laughlin.








And lastly, my typical travel self-portrait