Savannah 2023 finale - Mannequins!!

 

I've loved mannequins for a long time.  I once had a torso that lit up, which we used as a table lamp.  Once had a full mannequin in the dining room that wore an vintage Mardi Gras costume [she came with it!]  and a Shriner's hat. And I have a wonderful 50's vintage mannequin head who happily lives in my studio at home. So I was especially happy to 'come upon' mannequins on our Savannah rambles.

Moving day appears to be just that; a truck of mannequins on their way to somewhere else.  There wasn't a clothing store or any other kind of shop nearby that might use mannequins.  Perhaps it is a personal collection?

Mannequins On The Move collage - Savannah

This team of mannequins and an array of sewing machines, reside at Number Nine, which houses classrooms for the SCAD School of Fashion.  We came across this diligent woman working by herself one evening. Diligent's fish hat came about in a funny way.  I wanted to add an odd element and had a dream about using fish.  In my collection of fish images, I came across the fish-in-a-cup image I had created some time ago and saw the colors were just right.  As I was positioning-repositioning elements, I made some of the elements in the collage not visible.  When I made them visible again, I discovered that the fish-in-a-cup had positioned itself to perfectly become a hat!!  Serendipity won the day!

Mannequins In Class collage - Savannah

Our Savannah stay is coming to a close. Next time will be from our favorite 'Old Florida' town, Cedar Key, on the Gulf Coast.  

Winter Travels 2020 - Cedar Key - the Nature Coast of Florida

Once again I am a most fortunate person to spend some Winter time in one of my favorite places., Cedar Key - laid back, old-school Florida Gulf coast town.  A place to sit and watch and listen to the Gulf of Mexico from our vacation rental deck, meander the streets of historic Florida cottage architecture, with enough restaurants to please and boasting two art galleries.

Our favorite place for breakfast is the Second Street Cafe. Steamers is our go-to place for lunch and dinner. And Island Arts, now on Dock Street, is where we always bring something home from, especially from potter Frank DiGangi.

And once again, I have fun being inspired by what is around me for collage.  As always, I take my own photos, amplify the colors and alter them and add elements that catch my eye, many of which are extracted from other local photographs. The background images may have a bit of artistic modification, so if you came upon that place, it might look different than my collage. I travel with a hefty supply of images and google is always available to find just what I am looking for - or wasn't looking for!  Art fun.

This year I noticed several of my past Cedar Key collages have become 'historical' as some of the places, especially businesses, are no longer there.

Big Deck - Cedar Key, FL

Dilly Dally Mermaid on Second Street - Cedar Key

This lovely mermaid resides in the Dilly Dally Gally gift shop, in  the painting she is holding. Here she been freed to hang out on Second Street with her armadillo pal.

Cedar Key Circa 1930

Yellow In Cedar Key

Second Street Live Oak - Cedar Key

Cedar Key 2017 - my 'Old Florida' retreat

Cedar Key is a wonderful little town. an island at the end of Route 24 on the Gulf Coast, an area sometimes called the Nature Coast or the Forgotten Coast. We've made it part of our winter retreat for years now. 

Cedar Key is in Central Florida and the nearest city is Gainesville, an hour or so away.  We always make a day trip to Gainesville to the wonderful Harn Museum of Art, with a stop at the Gainesville Artisans Guild gallery, but mostly our time in Cedar Key is being off the grid by the Gulf and walking around town, which boasts two art galleries - The Island Arts Gallery and  Cedar Key Arts Center and a half dozen restaurants, our favorite hang-out is Steamers. 

The "Old Florida' architecture. colorful, vintage with a dash of funky and a smidge of chaos, always inspires me. And being 'off the grid' of doing, creates a wide open space for collage.

Breakfast Lunch - Cedar Key

Snake Plant Cottage - Cedar Key

Carts and Truck - Cedar Key

Live Oak Cottage - Cedar Key

The collages use my own photographs, amplified and altered and many of the elements are also from my photographs, extracted and 'amped', others are found images. The octopi are not from my own photographs - lol, but I do like to use octopi - they're always unexpected.

You can see past posts from Cedar Key by just entering Cedar Key in the blog search box.

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Cedar Key Redux

Cedar Key continues to fill me with color and whimsy.  And although the weather has been a bit cold and windy, it affords me to time to collage while looking out at palm trees and the Gulf.

This collage is a perfect capture of Cedar Key.  The three main elements - the flamingo, the funky Tiki bar sign and the Pirate cottage are all pretty much as you see them.  Of course, I did amplify the overall color of the composite image, but they all started out intensely colorful.  Even the large yellow flower was found painted on a building. Happy.Happy.

Pirate Flamingo Tiki Bar - Oh My

My favorite restaurant in town is Steamers.  They're open every day and have a wide variety of food. We've taken to eating at the bar, hanging in the locals vibe.  The uber-competent and very nice bartender is a joy to watch as she handles drinks, food and more and perfect pours of Guinness.  And it is yet another colorful building.

Steamers

I first started collecting octopi images because my son likes them, but I've developed my own affection for them.  Tentacles add a nice frisson to things.


Far Away Inn provided another wonderfully painted exterior as a background.  Now the repeated image motif is fashion dolls instead of paper dolls. And everyone liked pie.

Admire

Now you just have to be intrigued when you come upon a sign that says "Fine Art & Smoked Mullet."  Following the sign down the road presented me with this great art house trailer, complete with its own Lady on the roof.  Alas, it was not open - and has yet to be open - , so neither fine art nor mullet was to be had.  This is the sign that got my attention, but it is actually on the main road in town.  And the 'sushi' is candy sushi, with a Gummy fish on top.

Fine Art & Smoked Mullet

Smoked Mullet and a dip made from it is a local favorite here.  I purchased some dip at a nearby Winn Dixie.  Very weird.  The dip had pimentos and mayonnaise and eggs in it, so in the end this brand tasted like Pimento cheese spread gone bad.  That's enough fish adventure for me. Better as art.

Smoked Mullet Dip

Dockside Motel at night has a very noir feel to it.  Our mystic guest has left the building.

Dock Side Motel

Cedar Key - Old Florida

Cedar Key is one of my favorite places.  It's a laid-back, funky little island town. friendly, casual, on the Gulf.  Colorful enough to sport two art galleries and award-winning clam chowder.  There is a big clam growing industry here and the Cedar Key clams are the sweetest, most tender I've ever had. A perfect place to chill out, release stress and  just 'be', especially in Winter,  And in that, lots of open-ended time to noodle around with photos and images to my heart's content, especially on cooler, cloudy, windy days.

The view from our screened porch is a wonderful Live Oak and then the Bay.  Perfect.

Live Oak - Cedar Key

There are a lot of colorful buildings here, folk art signage and lawn art - just what inspires me. Happy am I. And although I love the water and marshlands and bird sanctuary, the first thing that caught my eye for a collage was this funky jeep.

JEEP

We pass the Far Away Inn everyday, full of murals, yard art and welcoming rainbow flags.  And yes, the 'Judys" are paper dolls of a young Judy Garland.  The 'Let Us Be - We're Alive sign is also from the Far Away Inn artist.

Far Away Inn Judys

Let Us Be

There's not much of a beach here, but kayacking and boating is popular, The door to beyond featured here is from one of our favorite breakfast joints, Away From the World Cafe.  The name comes from a Dave Matthews song and the only music they play in the place is the Dave Matthews Band. 

Kayacked

Cedar Key has a small airport owned by the county.  Small enough that there is no control tower.  It was built during WWII for air/sea rescue and then given to the county.  Apparently the runway arrow had been recently painted, giving me this stark shot. As usual. all my original photos have been amplified, altered  and the colors saturated.

Into The Wild Blue

Winters travel to Florida

This has been such a long, intense Winter, I was really looking forward to a February trip to Florida. We like the Gulf Coast near St Petersburg, where we've visited once before. This time we were going to stay at the beach. We found a wonderful interesting unique cottage, Casa Des Gatos, in Madeira Beach, which has the lovely walkable little village of John's Pass a couple of blocks down the road and were set for sun and shore.


Alas, it wasn't a fully wonderful trip. An overnight and half a morning delay at the airport before we even left Virgina. Rain, radically cold Florida weather - never got even into the 50's! - gray days and end with my husband getting a flu-like virus which totally knocked him out for 2 days! Arrrgh.

Our little cottage was lovely, even if we barely got to appreciate the wonderful gardens, but we did appreciate the cottage cats. And we spent one of the few sunny days with my old friend Donna, sitting in our cottage, drinking a lovely wine, eating area delights like a fish pate and sharing and talking and talking.

Still, St Petersburg is the home of the Salvador Dali Art Museum and we got to spend a wonderful morning there. Downtown St Petersburg also hosts a fabulous Saturday Morning Market and is there I found a wonderful Mermaid tile, which I have used an element from in my Mermaid torso here. Naturally, all the shells I found are in the piece as well. So I now have a wonderful personal evocation of the trip and the sea.

You can see the original tile and much more at How to Be A Wild Woman. The website is a collaboration of three friends, Julie, Lore and E'Layne under the guise of 3HipChics. You can't go wrong with a website that says, " We believe in wonder, magic and the power of dreaming big."

As my usual, I did a small collage journal of the trip. I like the collecting and gleaning part of these travel journals and sometimes I include images just because they like them even if they are not reminders of any specific experience. My motto is 'If I find it there, it can go in the journal.' Of course, I am not opposed to including most anything I am drawn to in most anything I create. I hold very limited rules in art.
torso back















I'm still working have on the book design for my friend, Jerry Boyd. Shift Happens - A Novel of Awakenings, is a tale of other worldly connections, meetings and understandings with a personal discovery embedded within it.





And lastly, my dear friend, Perry Fitzhugh has debuted his website of images, links and more at Folly Productions.com, dedicated to encouraging the production of folly. Folly - that which is at first perceived as foolish but in time, is seen as valuable.

Perry shares his quirky photos and unique take on things with me regularly by email and I'm so pleased he's finally on the web. His links page has some good people to check out as well. His site is a work-in-progress, so it's worth checking back to see what's next.