Lorde & Taylor and Ghosts oh my

I just love Lorde, the intense young New Zeland singer who has sprung on the scene via YouTube and most recently won a Grammy for the best Song of the Year and Best Solo Pop Performance.  I like her music, her attitude, her social consciousness and her dramatic looks.  An Art Girl for sure!

Somewhere in a conversation about Lorde, I made the association to the elegant old-school department store, Lord & Taylor.  My husband laughed and said, 'Hey you should do a collage with Lord and Taylor, like Taylor Hawkins.' and that set me off.  Taylor Hawkins is the intense drummer from Foo Fighters.  Next up, of course, was Taylor Swift and then with a variation on the theme, Koko Taylor, Blues Queen.  The Lord & Taylor store image is of an appropriately retro 1953 store in New Jersey.

Lorde & Taylor Rock collage

Lorde & Taylor Country collage

Lorde & Taylor Blues Collage

An earlier combo of Lorde & The Very Large array.  I came across the two images randomly one after the other while looking for something else.  I've amped and altered the original images.

The Very Large Array

Another another note entirely, our gallery, Shenandoah Valley Art Center is going to feature altered books in March, so I was inspired.  I opened this book literally to the page featured here, with the chapter heading 'Do you believe in ghosts?'.  From that, and with a laugh out loud, the theme was set.  The wonderful oooky-spooky figures come from a set of images I purchased around Halloween at DeviantScrap.com and these were included in the Hotel Hell series.

Do You Believe In Ghosts altered book

Collages. Steve Martin's Shoes and PINK

All the artwork from the recent art show is still sitting in my studio mostly unpacked  And assemblage was far from my mind.  No art for me this week, I thought.  Then the redoubtable Jerry Boyd -see his own great stuff @ thatjerryboyd.com - posted a wonderful picture of green shoes purportedly belonging to Steve Martin and that sent me on my way.  

Steve Martin's Shoes

The woman in the picture is Lorde, a 16 year New Zealand singer.   I love her energy and the image in the collage captures a feisty, centeredness I appreciate.  The image is amped up with various effects. 

I was thinking about colors I don't use too much and PINK came to mind.  And from that, surely a whole piece of pink would be fitting.  Finding pink things was fun.  I even just googled 'pink things', which turned up the pink gun.  I tried many pink combo backgrounds but my favorite acid green popped up and won the day.  Pink with an acid green side. Fits me fine.

PINK!