mixedmedia

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?

Rainy Spring and Citra Solv Worlds

| Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio
My boots and rain hitting the pavement, spring 2012.

Our spring has been so wet. I love the feeling of the rain. Sorry, but it brings a wave of poetry on, especially e.e. cummings and Dylan Thomas– puddles, mud, and the green fuse that drives the flower. The image below is absolutely spontaneous, a world created by splashes, generative worlds of watery spring.

CitraSolv image on National Geographic page

What can you do when an art piece is wonderful and you had no part in it? There is nothing to do with this page of the National Geographic, altered by Citra Solv splashed on it and left to dry on a line, other than to toss it into a pile of other paintings as relentlessly beautiful as a pile of autumn leaves.

CitraSolv images drying on grass.

Many do show these, of course, or mount them and sell them on Etsy.  I use them as collage pieces in paintings sometimes.  Every single one of them is a delightful gift from a great spring or source somewhere. Of course, they are a combination of someone’s masterful photography and the Geo’s fantastic printing process, so each one contains  seed germs of both talent and technology,  an aesthetic DNA ready to abstractly bust out.

I think that these little altered National Geographic pictures are just evidence of a great Grace, grace without effort.  I find it unfair that these are so beautiful and that I have to work so hard to make paintings.  It’s unfair, but unfair in the right direction.

My mother was given a lifetime subscription to National Geographic in 1929, so these magazines have always been a part of my life.  Each one is embedded with worlds of adventure in soy-based ink, released on the application of Citra Solv.    Do you remember flipping through them as a child, seeking breasts or beasts?  Were you forbidden to cut them up or destroy them?

It’s humbling to see what nature, chance, and the hand of others– the photographs we so relentlessly destroy to turn them into something else— can bring.  It’s a form of faith rising after destruction.  Exhilarating. Spring, after winter.

Judy Ludovise, Citra Solv mentor.

Studio Notes: In the March Spontaneous Construction class, Judy Ludovise conducted a Citra Solv segment.  Thank you so much, Judy!  I am fortunate to know two artists who have been featured as CitraSolv’s Artist of the Month,  Judy Ludovise and Susan Cornelis.  For complete instructions on how to use CitraSolv  to alter magazines, please visit the Citra Solv website.

Rainmaker, with spirals. Rain on pavement.

Mythic notes:  Here’s a Dylan Thomas poem for spring. There are so many images here of dripping,  whirlpools,  fountains, and natural accidents of love; this reminds me of painting with water media. I have always loved the phrase “green age.”  It’s what we can hope for.

THE FORCE THAT THROUGH THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE FLOWER

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

Open Studios, Open Hearts: 24 Barracks Artists in Santa Rosa

| Suzanne Edminster at Saltworkstudio

 Opening a studio is like cleaning  a window into the inner life of the artist.  Down the rabbit hole we go!

Saltworkstudio Nov. 2011

It’s more intimate than having people into your home, because you give your hospitality to everyone.  They can luxuriate in your colors, drink in images, and dine on your line.   The public sees the traces of your best effort and your worst nightmares,  the deep and superficial.  The artist tries to be fully with each question, from sublime to inane,  without falling into the pit of sales obsession. It’s quite the wine-and-cheese marathon.  Unless your heart is open, it can be nerve-wracking .  But when someone really sees your art– and really loves it– there is no greater high. 

 A few times people have burst into tears in front of one of my paintings.  James Elkin explores the phenomena in his Pictures and Tears:  People who have cried in front of paintings.   The book is a strange and fascinating  exploration  reactions to art when the eyes in our hearts have opened.  Museums used to have nursing stations where patrons overcome by art could recover… I think the Louvre still does.  Have you laughed or cried over a piece of art?

 Turquoise Window World is a sort of threshold or sill where the everyday table starts to tip over into the extraordinary, like the tables that the spirits move.  Strange fruit converse.  Flowers march and sprout angels, and a grove of spirits wavers in the background.  The painting expands domestic motifs as an un- still life , animated.   The turquoise paint, that bright opaque, came from my time living in India, where houses are unabashedly brilliant blue as a Kodachrome sea.   

Saltworkstudio and my friends the Barracks Artists are open  November 5-6 at 3840 Finley Ave, Santa Rosa, California.  Drop by to visit 24 artists in one location.  I’ll be painting.

In a Mythic News today, I introduce  Jeremy Joan Hewes, Caren Catterall , Mardi Storm, Paula and Cliff Strother, Kathryn Kelsey, Maris Peach, Claudia Rhymes, Monica Lee-Boutz, and Chuni Anello. We will be having a party on Saturday between 4 and 6. All our studios will be open.  Join us!

Jeremy Joan Hewes

 Jeremy Joan Hewes is a dynamic, subtle printmaker, photographer and my friend.  In her words: Sometimes you walk into a room and a discover an alluring mystery. That’s how I think of this image of subtle colors, dynamic pattern, and silhouettes, which I made at a recent workshop in Coupeville, Washington. I kept returning to that room as the day wore on and the light changed, each time taking more photographs. Color and light, with a little bit of “what is this?” thrown in.  Come see this photograph and some new mixed media pieces in studio 250 at the Barracks Artists open studio on November 5 and 6 – this weekend!

Caren Catterall ,  master printmaker, is a guiding star at the studio.  She produces a wonderful moon calendar  for gardening , as well as her  mythic prints.   Visit the beautiful print studio  for goddesses, coyotes, ravens and giants.  For a treat, relax with a cup of tea and her delightful video, The People with Spirits Strong as Stone.

Mardi Storm’s art is colorful and ethereal, with delightful Animal Angels.  She just started a new Etsy store.  Her partner’s group, Outlaw Dervish, will be playing at the reception at 4 on Saturday. See her new studio next to Caren and Jeremy! Visit Mardi Storm Artworks for a preview.

Don’t be fooled by Claudia Rhymes’ pixie glasses or shy demeanor.  Her new series of urban landscape grids over bright backgrounds rocks, and she’s a gifted, secret graffiti artist. She also has one of the new, larger downstairs studios.  Claudia is our hidden wonderchild in this Open Studio.

Paula and Cliff Strother share the studio with the most beautiful outlook on the hills.  Paula paints in acrylics and Cliff in oils. Visit this newly established studio to enjoy lush landscapes in a room with a view.

Kathryn Kelsey’s fascinating mixed media work changes every year.  Dedicated to wild animals, the environment, and indigenous peoples, her textures and materials are a delight.  I love her mixed media with dried radishes.  She is the Editor of the Barracks Bulletin and writes a blog.  Her downstairs studio is filled with the calm green light of nature, one of my favorite places to sit and relax.  

Maris Peach is our very own Joseph Cornell. I own a piece she made, the Alchemist’s Arcade.  In her words:  I tell stories using the flotsam and jetsam of life’s leftovers. Sometimes I begin with an object, sometimes I build from a concept, sometimes I fiddle and nuture a dream memory until it becomes an elaborate narrative. Othertimes the story is sparsly simple or even hidden, revealing itself through the beholder’s eye. Don’t miss her intricate, fascinating workshop and studio.

Monica Lee-Boutz is an energizing force of nature!  She paints in watercolor, is an accomplished collage artist, and has had several recent exhibitions.  Visit her studio upstairs across from Paula and Cliff.

Chuni is from Madrid, has a new studio downstairs, and absolutely unique mixed pieces using fabric, fiber, and wool.

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.