Scrappy, part II

My dad and mom, born in 1926 and 1929 respectively, are the ones whose early childhood years take place during the Great Depression of 1929-1939. 

I'm the baby-boomer who grows up in a time of plenty but who has a mile-high stack of good-on-one-side paper at the ready for further service, who saves fabric scraps and buttons and ribbon and elastic bands, who reuses items until they are threadbare and beyond re-use.

At some point—before I start painting in 2014? after? can't remember—I begin amassing what becomes a scrumptious and sizable collection of print matter of every hue, collected from magazines, calendars, and junk mail, which I sort by color for use as collage. The best!

When I set out to make what becomes the series of postcards featured in my blog the past three days, I'm not thinking collage. But collage is what becomes the fun and flow of making those cards; collage becomes the fuel that sets my creative energy on fire. 

I rummage through my scrap collection looking first to match the background ink colors of magazine pages to the acrylic paint colors I've brushed into place, a very appealing visual task. Then I scrutinize for words that intrigue or resonate or bristle or surprise. Next come the very satisfying tactile tasks of tearing and gluing. Finally, after making discerning selections, affixing them with the greatest of care, and fussing attentively to detail, I subject the completed work to my paper cutter, letting the blade fall where it will with regard to the art, boldly chopping the completed piece into three postcards!

A scrappy little project from a scrappy little artist.

project as painted/collaged on a 5.25 x 11" piece of card stock

that was formerly a calendar page

project chopped into three postcards 

and rearranged just for fun

Wide Open

OK, I have to tell you about a collage class I took probably 20 or more years ago. Local live class about twelve minutes from my home. First time I'd signed up for an art class probably since college back in the early 70's. Turned out to be horrible. 

Turned out I didn't really undertstand what collage was and I had no idea that it had any relationship to painting. Turned out the instructor was not a good fit. Turned out I cried driving home from class more than once. 

GOOD thing I had a friend who said, "You can drop the class, you know." Hadn't even occurred to me.

I dropped the class.

Whew! That was a relief.

---

Turns out all these years later: I LOVE COLLAGE! 

Who knew?!

The artist in me has her heart and soul wide open to the fun of it!

I present you with a little light reading here.

A Room Full of Open Windows and Doors
3.75 x 5.5" postcard, acrylic, collage, 
and oil pastel on card stock
abstract
2022

Composed

I don't always feel composed.

But a post by Jane Davies grabs my attention, lights me up, and gives me new fodder with which to think about composition.

“Throughout my process of painting, I am engaged in the act of composing. The visual elements and their relationships to one another change many times during the course of creating a painting. The composition is in constant flux until it isn’t. The composition of the finished painting (if it finishes, which not all my paintings do), is an unknown until it reveals itself through the process of composing.”

Life makes a mark; I respond. Throughout the process of living each day I am engaged in the act of composing, engaged in call-and-response, always in flux.

I don't always feel composed.

I am always composing. 

Yes.

The Friend Who Asks to Paint with You and
Drags You into Your Studio
4 x 5.25" postcard; acrylic, ink, oil pastel, and collage on card stock
abstract 2021

(Parenthetical Project) 10

I find myself reflecting on the art of correspondence as I engage in the art of creating a postcard this morning, on the sacred and enduring place that written co-respondence with others holds in my life.

Two sentences embedded in Jane McCafferty’s novel One Heart catch my one heart and my notice. I parse them into a smile of a poem.

And I like checking 

the mail each day 

because it turns out 

Gladys is a letter writer. 

She doesn’t write so often, 

but the letters she does write, 

it’s worth the wait, 

if you can read the penmanship.

Clean and Sharp as Pepper
4 x 5.5" postcard, acrylic, ink, and collage
abstract
2021

(Parenthetical Project) 1

“And you? What are you going to be when you grow up?”

In kindergarten, when the teacher asked this question,

Warren had answered with his plans for that afternoon—

the afternoon being as far into the future

as his five-year-old mind could imagine. Since then,

“What are you going to be when you grow up?”

had been Mia's and his way of asking about plans for the day.

Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere

Warren! 

My hero!

What, you ask, do I want to be when I grow up? I want to be the artist who, this afternoon, interrupts her Abstract Faces series/class progress to start a parenthetical project of a different sort. 

How's that for grown up!

(parenthetical project),
twelve 4.5 x 6"starts, acrylic on drawing paper