collage

Art According to Starbucks

| Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio

I’m in an anonymous Starbuck’s in a LA suburb town.  It’s next to my mom’s old folks home and I use it for handy breaks and internet.  I look up and suddenly  I notice that I’ve  somehow I’ve fallen into a mixed media collage.

The drawn teapot is "finished" to the right in the negative space of sign and window.
The drawn teapot is “finished” to the right in the negative space of sign and window.

Okay, I decide to analyze the art.  Above we see a very popular style.  Its components: handwriting, chalk effect, white lines over a surface.  So ironic. Handwriting is arguably dying and it is probable the artist who designed this never saw a real chalkboard.  “Courier New” typeface is also popular with the crowd who’ve never used an actual typewriter.

Torn collage pieces
Torn collage pieces

Irregular transparent torn pieces, stencil underneath, and a painterly wash of white obscures the “canvas”.

Wall-sized mural detail
Wall-sized mural detail

It struck me that mixed media has entered mainstream art.  Notice use of maps, “encaustic”– the waxy seal– and graphite-looking line work.

Fantasy animal
Fantasy animal

The animal looks like it was assembled from transparent transfers of non-copyright material, similar to transfers from Dover beloved of Trader Joe’s brown paper bags.

Starbuck's mixed media
Starbuck’s mixed media

The original of this whole wall might have been under a yard wide.  It does look as if it was done as a physical rather than digital artwork, but I might be wrong.  A small piece photographed at high resolution can become huge.

Transparency, graphite lines, white lines, torn pieces, transfers, encaustic, canvas, washes, chalky lines:  mixed media today, and all can be imbibed visually along with that decaf soy latte.

Torn collage pieces
The drawn teapot is “finished” to the right in the negative space of sign and window.
Fantasy animal
Starbuck’s mixed media
Wall-sized mural detail

Metaphoracard Collage Play at Camp Winnarainbow for so-called Adults

| Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio
One of my cards.

What the heck is a Metaphoracard?  Laura Foster Corben and I invented these small (5″ x 7″)collage paintings on matboard to provide art play for Wavy Gravy’s Adult Camp Winnarainbow.  I’m the Metaphoracard Girl and Amuse Grove Reader.

In the tradition of side amusements for The Players– the musicians, clowns, dancers, arialists, stiltwalkers, magicians, storytellers and poets of the cosmic, comic Circus– the cards provide diverse diversions, a little taste of trickster mind at play.

As in my Saltworkstudio classes, we work  in series, doing three at one time, and follow one of the Almost Unbreakable Cardinal Rules–Paint First.  Getting the mark of the hand, paint, brush or ink down before applying images is vital.  I’m not sure why, but it seems to transform the cards from stiff constructions to flowing, “wavy,” spontaneous combustions of dreamy image.

They are meant to be entertainments, in the way that some novels are called “An Entertainment.” There is no number to the deck.  The deck is temporal and temporary, created in time by a group, played with, and dismantled after.  Because they call forth a certain bubbly synchronicity, their accuracy can be astonishing, but unrepeatable.  Like an appearance of a Loch Ness Monster, they leave splashy traces, but can’t really be nailed down or captured in a net of a single meaning.  And they dissolve after the week at camp, each player claiming their own trading cards of vision, dream, and just plain weird stuff.

A little handful of art magic to play with.

Since Camp Winnarainbow emphasizes fun, play, and performance, we wanted to create a recreational visual art form  that would give satisfaction in the both in the making and in active use after.  The cards were read by a raggle-taggle Amuse group in the temporary Amuse Grove you see below.  There’s a Cosmic Phone for when we get stuck.  We just dial up the Demigods to get an anwer. The chairs are decorated with old wedding gowns from the Costume Tent.

Instead of the Muse Grove, the Amuse Grove.

Metaphoracards require a community.  You need a group to get a deck, and you need someone else to read your card. It’s the rule of the Cosmic Trickster that you can’t know what your image might say.  I puzzled over my image of Faulkner, doggies, and a flower, until my husband Scott said, “That’s easy.  It’s Power: dog power for the body, Faulkner power for the intellent, and the flower is pure vegetative power, an idea bursting out.”  Huh, and wow.  Flower power?

But… are they serious ART?  I absolutely hope not.

My thanks to Wavy Gravy, Jahanara Romney, and Laura Foster Corben for sponsoring me  as a Guest Artist at Camp Winnarainbow. Take a look at the cards the talented Susan Cornelis made. Towards the fun!

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Art Collage Box Cleanout

| Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio
Spidermen Original Holga Photo, Suzanne Edminster. Pre-Instagram!

As I was going through my overcrowded art storage area, I came upon my nemesis– the art collage box.  It was full of things I collected at one time.  I was sure I would use them some day.

 I won’t tell you everything I found, but there was Monopoly money from a broken antique set,  German fortune-telling cards, a work on rice paper by an artist from Bangalore, India,  and Mexican loteria cards.  Out fell ancient notes and antique photos, a Virgin of Guadalupe print and a Holga photo of Spidermen, and a paranormal magazine I got in Prague in the 90’s.

Collage Box

I thought I might tell you what I kept and what  I discarded, but I found I was reluctant to list things I threw away.  Hey, it felt like a taboo.  Why?

I’ve always said that collage itself had some connection with destruction and death, the dark side.  Things are dismembered and removed from their original space, time and context, often by cutting  or tearing, actions that have an air of violence.  There’s an air of secrecy about them. That box felt like a  coffin for dead ideas combined with  a treaure box, a graveyard for things that had once compelled me.

Someone would be sure to ask, “Why did you throw that out?” Even worse, they might say, “You could have given that to me.  I would have liked that.”  I would be responsible for disappointing someone.  Another person would become implicated and entangled in my decision.  I’ve encountered this a lot.  People really do not like it when one simply disposes of things. A taboo has been broken.  Improper burial?  Disrespect for objects?  Then the discarded object comes back to haunt you through the remonstrations of others.  And now, with the advent of eBay, all junk has been acquired a false patina of consumer value.

I bought this in Bangalore when I was rich. Now I’ve lost the artist’s name. Perhaps Rashika Thakur?

Each item is really the representation of a certain dream, experience, or longing.  An object then has become a literalized metaphor, carrying meaning far beyond itself.  If I discard the object, do I discard the idea?  Or does the object become a substitute for fresh experience?  Each item becomes a love letter from a past idea-affair.

Nowadays I use only two kinds of collage: text and black and white non-copyright photocopies of drawings or my own photos.  Often the collage vanishes completely, or is torn to become an area of texture that may have figurative associations for me, but not for the viewer. I’ve never liked using “old” or “failed” paintings as collage parts.  It seems disrespectful to the original impulse, a Frankenstein construction that I am forcing to life.

I think I’m just as happy putting this flotsam on the floor and photographing them, and then letting them drift back to the strange ether of discarded objects, or the garbage.  But then, again…

There, I’ve revealed my collage underbelly. What’s in your boxes?

5 Tips for Painting with Collage

| Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio

What’s collage painting, mixed media painting, or combined media painting? How does it differ from collage? 

How can you use collage elements in painting without being highjacked or overwhelmed by the collage image?

Here’s a simple rule of thumb: A collage painting is more paint than collage elements.  The paint is 60% or more of the painting.  The collaged parts merge and meld seamlessly into the whole. 

 How to do it? Here are 5 tips. All paintings shown here are acrylic paint on paper or canvas.  I affix collage pieces to the surface with glossy acrylic gel medium.

1. Use only your own images whenever possible, including photographs, text, and your own sketches and handwriting.  You can also use copyright-free black and white images.  Copy and recopy the same  images in larger and smaller sizes at a copy store or using a laser printer.  Black and white is easier to incorporate, and leaves the color elements to the painter and paints.  I prefer to avoid colored magazine images, as tempting as they are.  The more you play with a single image by altering size, color, dimension, the more freedom you will gain  in painting.  You’ll own the image, rather than the image “owning” you.

2. Choose a theme. I used non-copyrighted Dover deer. Avoid themes that are intensely personal, like pictures of your dog, your mom, or your child.  You need to have a bit of distance to use images effectively, or to rip one up.  Eventually you’ll develop image banks of differing themes that become your private visual language.  

3. Paint first.  Put color on the surface, or paint a very sketchy painting, then affix images, then paint some more.  Painting first, before applying images, establishes that it is more a painting than a collage.  For all of these I chose a crucifix composition and applied paint first.  Then I put down ripped black and white collage images.  A warm background is good, as it can glow up through layers of paint.

4.Be willing to sacrifice the image.  Let go of the image you love and let it disappear, if the painting demands it. Show only a part of it.  If you want to keep it perfect, do regular collage, not collage painting.  This is one of the hardest parts of using collage elements in paintings.

5. Cover your images with glossy gel medium or UVLS varnish as you apply them.  Then you can pile on coats of paint and still wipe back to find them.

Toss the collage boxes and go back to only a few images.  Use them  thoughtfully in series of paintings. And have fun! 

Please use the comment section for questions on the collages or techniques.  I’m happy to share what I know.  If you’re one of my student who gets the blog, please share something about your experience with collage painting.

Mythic news:   Deer are symbols of sacrifice and purity, often used in Christian iconography.  It was said that deer gathered at the foot of the cross where Jesus hung.  I used them here  in these three works floating up and down through a penetrable horizon of birth and death, ancestor souls.  Collage itself belongs to the realm of Kali: dismembering  of paper , appropriation of image, rebirth of pieces into a new whole.  The goddess of Necessity wields the scissors and snips the thread of life– or the image.

Dover Image Joy

| Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio

Call me a fool, but I love Dover images, even if I don’t use them often.  A baboon, a lizard, and choirboys lead the way, while a mammoth skull bellows.  I rushed into the studio, took down a large painting start (orange with flourescent paint) and made a quick assemblage of things to inspire.  Dover images have a rich, black and white web of texture.  I like to enlarge them at Kinko’s on regular copy paper, then rip them freely.  In pieces, you can’t tell what the original image was, but I always think that somehow, the network of lines “remembers.” Paste them down right on the canvas, or, if you’re patient, use an image transfer technique.

Dover Images are a metaphor machine.  Just place any two side by side and see what they tell you.  The choirboys with the mammoth skull?  Well, in the old days we worshipped the animal world, especially those that could kill you.   The skull and the lizard?  We’re immediately in the desert the desert, or the underworld. And, by the way, they’re not copyrighted… they have officially entered the realm of the archetype, the eternal.  Forge your bonds with the archetypes.   Invite a Dover book to dinner.