A Book About Death — Halloween Distribution System

I went out on Halloween weekend as promised and created mini exhibitions throughout the Mohawk Valley using my duplicate A Book About Death Postcards. I am sorry I couldn't take the time to credit these individuals in these captions. I may go back and fill them in when time permits.
The project lives on.
Ironic right? After all, it's a book about death.



There aren't a lot of places to post anything in Fort Plain, NY.
Here I sabotaged the For Rent bulletin board with 6 cards.

I liked tucking this card in this little shelf out in front of an antique store on main st. It matched the antique bottle and old toolbox so nicely.


There were these pots on the sidewalk with dead plants. What a good place for A Book About Death cards.

Old Stuff This Way! A Perfect prop!


These little plant arrangements were begging for some action. I was hoping this display would tempt passersby to take a card and look closer.

I tried to attach them to this iron post. It didn't work that well, but 2 cards were placed here.

Another plant arrangement with A Book About Death offerings.

This empty store window (also for rent!) had some old DVDs and VCR tapes in the window. The cards I stuck on the window blended in so nicely.


I liked the white backdrop. Looked like a little white gallery wall.


This telephone pole was on the side street by the laundromat. I used it as an outdoor gallery zone, and posted 5 cards here.

This brick ledge was close to where a lot of people enter the laundromat. Perfect slot for some cards.

Inside the laundromat, I stuck some cards on the magazine rack.

And then used every available tack to place as many cards as I could on the bulletin board. Unphased, laundering customers didn't even notice me.

Another white wall begging for some posts!

I wanted some in the country. There's a barn on a 4 corners out in the country that is quite abandoned. I picked out cards for this particular setting that had a lot of green in them, since the background behind was red. They really stood out.


And finally, my favorite pic of all. She seems to be glaring at the man with no face.
Last time I checked, these 2 cards still were hanging on the barn, withstanding winds and rains over the past week.

Emilie

Emilie
Originally uploaded by misphit

Okay, so now I got it! A winner. I love Emilie and the way she came out.

This piece has 2 stories.
First, the watercolor. I am recycling these older watercolor studies and making collages with them. This one really had some color punch and was a joy to revive. It was a half done study that I did in 1997. The right hand side mountains and the whole lake were still white and incomplete. I guess it wasn't looking right at the time and I shelved it.


Emilie...is another of my grandmothers' sisters. I think Emilie was a younger sister. I made her a little huntress. I liked the juxtaposition of little girl with weapon. I may use this idea again.

As I started working on this piece, I was staring at the scenery in it. The lines were familiar. I looked again and guessed that I did this watercolor at Mud Pond, a favorite bog of mine on the Powley-Piseco Road in Stratford. I was just there a couple of months ago and did another watercolor study recently and it looked familiar.
Sure enough. There in pencil were my notes from the original watercolor in 1997. I guess it wasn't a successful watercolor, but amazingly enough, I recognized the place!

Bronislava

Bronislava
Originally uploaded by misphit

Aunt Bernice...she was my grandmother's sister.
Bronislava was her Lithuanian name.

The building in the background is from a vintage Sveksna postcard.
I was looking for some color magic on this one. Working towards a folk art look. The orange is supposed to vibrate with the purple. (complimentary colors). Not sure that's working on this piece...
I like it better than Julija, however.

Julija

Julija
Originally uploaded by misphit

I don't have much to say about this piece.
Except
It started out in my head as a very light colored work, pastel even, like a candy confection. I ruined it with the acrylic. And later on at night, I wanted to draw swirls which REALLY ruined the lines in this piece. (note to self: save swirlies for doodling!)
Not all works --work out.

Laima

Laima
Originally uploaded by misphit

The woman in this piece is not LIthuanian. She is from an old brown toned English newspaper. I am not sure what country she hails from.
I liked her European attitude, however, and she became a visitor in my little Lithuanian key world.
I am almost done practicing on these key portraits. I will be ready to use my family portraits as soon as I work thru this key thing a bit more. I need to now start adding the Lithuanian iron cross influence to the keys and then I will be ready. I am eager to infuse these with actual family people, instead of random LIthuanian folk from my picture stash. I am also going to experiment with some Norwegian themes. I have pictures on that side of the family to use too....And so the project continues.

Rasa

Rasa
Originally uploaded by misphit

I am cleaning out my loft and finding old treasures of my own. This was an old watercolor that never got finished. I guess it didn't look like I expected it to and I abandoned it. For 10 years it has sat in the envelope. I decided to recycle some of these backgrounds and use them in some collage work.

Keys again? yup.

Memory Song

Memory Song
Originally uploaded by misphit

This place is but a memory in a wooden box of the past. They were my Grandmas' treasures. They were her memories and now they are but an ancient song in my mind. An unknown melody of mysterious memory.

Working on small pieces to problem solve this key thing going on in my head. I am looking for a folksy, airy, fantasy, elaborate kind of feel in these pieces. The elaborate keys are the hardest part to achieve. I'm still not certain that these even look like keys!

A Book About Death —

On Halloween, I plan to post my duplicate A Book About Death cards all over the Mohawk Valley. Random Style! Here there and everywhere! I have about 150 duplicates. Should be fun.
I will be tacking them up in various places, handing them out, leaving them in laundromat, taping them to peoples' backs, etc...
I will be documenting each placement via photograph.
I will be creating a digital artwork using these photos as my part of the Cecil ABAD project.

A Book About Death — Isn't Dead Yet

A message from Cecil Touchon:

A Book About Death - 2010

I am putting out an open call - please spread the word.
DEADLINE: JULY 15TH, 2010
I will be putting on a Book About Death exhibition/performance next October using the set of cards, posters, artifacts, etc. that I have and I invite everyone to send a postcard sized collage for next year's exhibition. You could also send any sort of small sized artwork,
assemblage,
poem,
objects to put in a box with other people's objects
music,
film,
story,
quote,
event score for performance,etc.

everything should say on it somewhere: A Book About Death

I will attempt to do a book around it that I will be fashioning over the course of the year. If there is anyone who is actually a good book designer and knows how to use better software than word for windows, I invite you to contact me and collaborate on the creation of the book. I want it to have many images, stories, poems, etc. - possibly a multi-volume set over the coming years. I can see that A Book About Death is going to have a long and growing life over the coming years. I invite collaborators to help out with the organizing and we'll need some performers to show up for the opening. We could also coordinate simultaneous or traveling exhibitions around the country or world.

Louise, maybe you can announce this to those who are sending things for your show at the Queens or make a flier to give out at the show there?

Send to:
A Book About Death 2010
6955 pinon street
fort worth, texas 76116

cecil

Make a Chair!

Here is an interesting project you can participate in. See all details at: www.theglobalchairproject.org/

1. Create a chair that will fit into a box no larger than 8x8x8 inches (21x 21x21 centimeters) . It can be a sculpture, a painting, a song, a story, a photograph, a video. Almost anything goes as long as its collectible and durable and chair-related.

2. Photograph your chair in a low-resolution digital jpeg, 72dpi and no larger than 8 inches (21cm) on any side.

3. Send a picture of your chair by using the Upload button on the menu. Remember to send it in a low resolution jpeg. In the message box put your name, eMail address, title of chair, size of chair, materials used and value(optional) .

5. If accepted by The Project you will be notified as to where and how to ship it.

You will need to pay for shipping. Your chair will be professionally photographed for the auction, so please send a low-res, jpg image. No high resolution images will be opened. We'll take care of the rest.

The Project will pay for shipping to the purchaser.

6. You will be notified when your chair is to be auctioned. Let your collectors, family and friends know so you can raise the highest bid possible.

7. Bids may be higher or lower than the actual value but please know you are doing your part to help a world in need.

8. Be creative and good luck!

Land of Keys is in my Head!

This whole key thing is out of control. ALL I DID was see a cool monogram key done by Aubrey Beardsley in a book. I am obsessed! Now everything has to have a key in it. My man Chris hooked me up with wads of vintage keys...seriously. I have skeleton keys, car keys, vintage keys, flat keys, OMG so many freakin' keys. I have been sketching them all over the place hoping to be able to make the basic shape recognizable, so then I can embellish at will.

At the same time all this key nonsense is floating in my head, I am also re-addressing my pile of geneology papers. I have all sorts of vintage photos from my family and I am working on compiling a book, a family history. The challenge will be to illustrate it. Why is this the challenge, you ask?? Because in this book treatment, I will need to reign in my propensity to totally warp out peoples' bodies!!! I will have to work on backgrounds and try to leave the main character of each piece intact. If this book is to have any historical value to my relatives, Aunt Diana has to look like Aunt Diana, not like a bird with Aunt Diana's head!!

As I peer into Lithuanian history, I have found that they have this custom of creating very elaborate iron crosses. They are most common, and they decorate not just churches, but also the tops of barns and homes. Poles are erected at the edges of fields, and these poles have crosses and other symbols on top of them. I am intrigued by this, and I am in love with the beautiful patterns. As it usually happens in my head, all these topics get kind of mashed up. The keys have turned into the Lithuanian crosses/poles and I am making images that are a cross between the two. (ha! pardon the pun!)

This is my first practice piece in this series. I wanted to put family members faces on these women, but I didn't have any printed out and at hand when I was working, so I ended up putting these random faces on instead. I love the saturn, it's my favorite spot in this piece.


The second piece is a companion to the first. I am not pleased with the lack of yellow in this second one. It's too late to embellish it at this point, so it will have to fly. On this second one, I started out with a Lithuanian pole, and I used symbolism from an actual sample. But halfway thru the collage portion, I tried to turn it into a key. Strange, now it doesn't look like either.

Regal Winged Blackbird

Regal Winged Blackbird
Originally uploaded by misphit

This weekend I worked on a piece for a small exchange. This artwork goes to someone who is fond of birds. I am in the Halloween mood, but didn't want to use the usual crow or raven.

Stefania

stefania
Originally uploaded by misphit

Working with some new ideas. I am thinking about producing a book about my family history. I am in possession of the mother load of our families information. I would like to produce the info, and also illustrate. I don't want to morph the people too much, I am seeking more to portray them in artful portraits and settings. With this one, I almost went too far I think. It doesn't resemble a portrait. Maybe a portrait of her in the street?

I am back to using as much ephemera as I want on this project. I got really good feedback at my show. It seems that most people are seriously intrigued by the contents of the work. (of course, me posting the ingredients below the titles may have had something to do with it!)

The Lithuanian part of my family was quite large. They had a lot of children back then, hence the rabbit in this piece. I stamped with a vintage key on the background on this piece, but I didn't really like it. I ended up covering most of it. I want to draw a key in some of the "white" space...but I don't think I have the room in this one. Next time, perhaps.

Key sample

key sample
Originally uploaded by misphit

Working through this with collage.
First attempt.