Rochester Contemporary Arts Center 6 X 6 show collages

Steve Specht here...
Thought you might enjoy some collage highlights from the recent opening of the ROCO 6x6 exhibit/fundraiser. Shown were some of my favorites (and mine is the frog, entitled "Delicate Rana"). Enjoy!

Rags to Riches (in Stratford)

How does that saying go? 

One man's junk is another man's treasure.

There's this juxtaposition of the rhinestones against the ramshackle shed. The heavy substrate allowed me to attach heavier objects to this work. The protruding 3d front door will be enhanced further when I install a tiny blue LED light underneath the drawer pull. It should shine an eerie light down upon the front door and reflect off of the jewels.

I feel like these pieces are so vulnerable and fragile, sticking out from the base with no protection like this. The art is almost as fragile as the actual buildings they depict!

It was all she had, this humble ramshackle home in the woods.

a jewel in the rough.

Protruding Front door

Rags to Riches

(in Stratford)

Mixed Media on vintage cabinet drawer front

Book endpapers, laser prints taken in Stratford, 35mm photos, vintage blueprint, vintage magazine ad, various rhinestone jewelry parts, vintage engraving, postcard 

Sachem 2

Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow

Brant

 This is Indian piece #2. It's going along with that video I started to do months ago. It's so difficult to go and pour myself into something that I have left behind for awhile. Stretching in my memory banks, I try to pull out the emotions that drew me to this idea in the first place. It's such a struggle! I seem to require an intense amount of concentration to be able to continue along in a particular subject. I work full time-part time-and now free lance. It's difficult to find the free time for me to address these things. When these periods happen when life seems to get in the way of my own pursuits, I get a strange anxiety as I face the paper again. Can I meet my own expectations yet? Can I even meet the quality of what I was doing before? I doubt myself, and my skills feel rusty. I hate these feelings, but maybe, just maybe this time I have had enough time to digest some new ideas....some new life. I threw away over half of my ephemera collection. I also have new rules I am following. Will anything change? It has to. It's the law of our planet.
Now, more than ever, I am hoping for something to emerge from this cocoon I have been hibernating in.

King John

Altered Books Final

 This past semester I taught design at SUNY Cobleskill again, and I tried a really crazy idea for the final project. After learning about line, shape, texture, color, etc....I had them create altered books as the final.

Erik B reworking a Bible! He had music as his theme and revealed that music was spiritual for him.

They needed to create at least 4 sections, and design the cover--keeping some kind of unity and theme across the book.

The very prolific Gaby D works on her altered '70s biology book, giving it a hippy rainbow attitude. 

It was a month long journey, with the students going crazy over these books.

Melique G drawing in his unique raw style within his altered Encyclopedia. 

I watched the whole thing unfold and as they worked on them, I learned as much as they did.

Brittany S covered her book with leather and made an enclosure out of a nail she plucked out of the wall in class.

The various ways they tackled the theme, the interesting things they did with their pages, their utter involvement, it was just fascinating and I am so glad I decided to go this route as the final!

Josh T completely covered this book with gesso, and then created a masterpiece book about rain

The rewards for stepping out of our boxes are many.

"Re-planetizing Daniel"

Steve Specht here...
My latest as I get ready for the show in Canajorharie. Hope you enjoy!

WAY too long!

Steve Specht here...
It's been WAY too long since I posted last. The good news is that the semester is almost over and I look forward to posting vmore through May and the summer. This morning I'd like to share with you a piece I put together which is a bit deviant from my typical style (although, of course, you can probably see my "voice" in the piece as well). I was working on a piece for the 6 X 6 show at the Rochester Contemporary Arts Center (more on that later) and had several 300lb watercolor paper substrate pieces prepared for the project. I ended-up having a piece left-over. The paper was painted with a mixed green acrylic paint and then I took a "metallic" blue spray paint can and held it above the paper about two feet and sprayed a fine "mist" down onto the painted paper. It really provided a nice effect-- a little sparkly (not too much) and a nice blue green hue (see detail). I had some elements laying around that I had prepared for use without having a specific purpose for them (it's collage afterall, right?). So I just started experimenting without much intention. I realize that other collagists do this often; but my approach typically is driven ("dogged") by a need for more intentional composition (for better or for worse)... you can ask Julie about; she's seen me work ;-). Anyway, this is what emerged from my play. I have entitled it "He stunned her with his emptiness" (5" x 7"). Enjoy!

Yet another NYC collage exhibit

Read this story in the NY Times about a Romare Bearden collage exhibit.
www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/arts/design/romare-bearden-at-michael-rosenfeld-gallery-review.html?_r=1&hpw

“Romare Bearden Collage: A Centennial Celebration” is on view through May 21 at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 24 West 57th Street, Manhattan; (212) 247-0082, michaelrosenfeldart.com.

Webster Wagner Hollow

Webster Wagner Hollow

Mixed Media on Oak Dresser Drawer

Acrylic, pen and ink, stencil, tape transfer, vintage yarn package, graffiti peeled in NYC, laser prints

I often drive by dark, old neglected buildings and wonder about the interiors. Sometimes there's a dim light and I can peak in and see the shadows of my imagination inside. This particular house, the Webster Wagner house in Palatine Bridge had no lights on and a feeling of desolate desperation permeates it's exterior. It always seems so empty and hollow.
While I composed this piece, I stopped to consider what should happen inside the building. I wanted no top or bottoms on the buildings prompting you to get closer to look inside. I wanted to convey the hollow feelings I have. So I decided to have the inside of the building be identical to the outside, a mirror image of the outside. The exterior has an interior that is it's exterior.

The exterior has an interior that is it's exterior

This idea of working on a different plane has me enthused. Especially since it fits my current subject matter so well! The video I am doing might really benefit from this treatment. It's funny how one idea bleeds into another.

article worth reading

Steve Specht here...
Wow, this is a very interesting article in "Inside Higher Education" about science, creativity and art. Enjoy!
www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/03/28/interview_with_author_of_book_on_artscience_labs

Webster Wagner House

After all the fuss and tedious work for my daughters' shower, it was a mind shift to begin work on my own stuff again!

Webster Wagner House

Today I was able to plunge back into my work! I just finished Webster Wagner's House. It's a very imposing, run-down and creepy home in Palatine Bridge. I tried to imagine it in another day, perhaps when times were not so tough. In reality, this house looks worse than ever. I doubt it has a long future ahead.

More invasion and other fantasies

Steven Specht here...
Greetings! I wish I had more time to share some thoughts about this piece; but I am really overwhelmed with my "real job" work these days to take the time. I did want to get this image (11 x 14") "out there" though. More to come when I find a little bit of time. Enjoy!

Appropriation and Richard Prince

Work by Richard Prince—in the Canal Zone exhibit

Who is Richard Prince:
from wiki:
Richard Prince (born 1949 in the Panama Canal Zone) is an American painter and photographer. Prince began appropriation photographs in 1975...
Re-photography uses appropriation as its own focus: artists pull from the works of others and the worlds they depict to create their own work.


He's been in the news lately....he got sued for his appropriation of photographs, specifically, images from Patrick Cariou, a photographer who is author of  the book “Yes Rasta". I always watch with keen interest when I see collagists brought to court. If you have followed this blog, you have heard of my exploits with copyright issues, and how recently I purged more than 50% of my ephemera collection in order to push myself to create more of my own pieces for collage work.
Sadly, Richard lost the case. I am not aware of the specific details of this case, so I cannot comment on this outcome. It is interesting to note, however, that the judge not only found Richard Prince guilty, he also found the gallery that represents him (Gagosian!) guilty too! This is a HUGE blow to collage art and appropriation in general.
Step lightly, my friends!
I suppose, if your work isn't selling in the 6 figure range, most likely no one will be suing or bothering you. Once you reach that threshold....and it becomes more about the money....it appears as though the courts do not easily rule in your favor. How many times have you taken a photo from any other source but your own and embellished it?
Again, since I don't know of the nitty gritty details of this case, I can't make much of a judgement. But as a full time collagist, I still find this all so very disturbing. 


To flip the coin:
Really. How hard would it have been for Mr. Prince to go and get his own Rasta photos?  He has the money to do so. Or he could even search (Flickr) Creative Commons for other pix to use. I feel this man could have avoided the whole problem by taking his own pix.  Go figure!


Article in the New York Times about the case is here.
More about Richard Prince can be found on wiki here.
And finally, a link about the very exhibition causing the problems for Mr. Prince is here.

Work by Richard Prince—in the Canal Zone exhibit

Finished! Back to my own stuff!

The wedding projects are finished. I ended up creating 12 different heart collages which when printed became the table cards. The originals I bound in the book for her and honestly, it's the best binding work I have ever done. Indeed this is appropriate, since it's for my daughter! I can't wait to see the look on her face this weekend at the shower. A trip to North Carolina is in order and I will be out of town for a week enjoying southern spring weather while snow continues to pile up in my yard!
This past week I finished up a piece for Steven (which i will be telling more about in a future post), in addition to doing a piece for Melissa McCobb Hubbell and 6 pages in an altered book round robin for Laura Lein-Svencner. It's been a crazy busy week!!

My stuff on the wall in downtown Canajoharie

So when I got the go ahead to hang my artwork downtown at the Elephant Bistro, it pushed me over the top! The elephant bistro is a new place to eat in Canajoharie. It's got really great food and a super nice ambience I just adore. The ladies that run it are very personable and from the first time I went there I felt I was with friends. I have more pieces to hang for them, but this will have to wait until I get back home. Time for some R & R!

Invasion series

Steve Specht here...
This one is entitled "No, I haven't heard about any invasion" (8" x 10"). I am having fun with the "Invasion series" so far. The title of my upcoming solo exhibit at Arkell Museum in Canajoharie (June 3-July 29) I think will be entitled "Invasions and other fantasies". I'm really looking forward to seeing the piece hanging together. BTW, it wasn't intentional that my last two pieces have had a similar color scheme, but I certainly like the scheme. Enjoy!

"Elegant Finestra" (8" x 8")

Not much to say about this one at this point. Just thought I'd share. I'm hoping to finish a couple this week. Enjoy!

Opportunities?

Steven Specht here...
I hate to bump Fred's work (SEE BELOW!), but thought some of you might be interested in the following:
A couple of things for folks to consider.
The Rochester Contemporary Arts Center is conducting one of their interesting fund-raisers again this year in June. It's called the 6x6x2011. Artists can submit a 6" x 6" piece of artwork (any medium) which becomes part of a 5000 piece exhibit (yes, 5 thousand!). Each of the pieces is priced at $20 to benefit the Center. It's interesting to see the diversity of artwork. The down-side is that your name does not get posted with your piece. It is only revealed to the buyer (so the name exposure is virtually non-existent). BUT, I think it's a worthwhile cause. I think I am going to do it again this year and attend the opening reception on June 4th. Should be fun. Check out the website at: www.rochestercontemporary.org/ You can see a cool video from last year's 6 x 6 event at this site too. Deadline for submission is May 1, 2011.
The Old Forge Arts Center is sponsoring an exhibition with the theme "H2O". They are accepting artwork and written work for this show. The show runs from March 26-May 7th with opening reception on March 26th. The deadline for submissions is March 7th. Check out this site for more details: www.artscenteroldforge.org/exhibitions.cfm?newsitem_id=23&action=view
Enjoy!

p.s. Also, way further on down the road. Jonathan Talbot will be conducting one of his wonderful workshops at Utica College during the weekend of April 21-22, 2012 in conjunction with a collage exhibit at Utica College of which Julie will be a part! More details to follow (you'll be able to enroll through Jonathan's website soon).

Fred Tomaselli

Discovery of the day:
Fred Tomaselli
I found these beautiful works through Look into my Owl. What fascinating and in depth pieces this man creates! To quote wiki:
"Tomaselli's paintings include medicinal herbs, prescription pills and hallucinogenic plants alongside images cut from books and magazines: flowers, birds, butterflies, arms, legs and noses, which are combined into dazzling patterns that spread over the surface of the painting like a beautiful virus or growth."
Fantasic pieces that feed my imagination, works that take awhile to absorb!  He coats the finished product with resin, and I can't think of anything more glorious visually than looking thru the depth of resin at these primordial images.

Fred Tomaselli (American, b. 1956). Big Raven, 2008. Acrylic, photocollage, and resin on wood panel, 84 x 72 in. (213.4 x 182.9 cm). Private collection, courtesy of the artist, White Cube, London, and James Cohan Gallery, New York

Fred Tomaselli (American, b. 1956). Desert Bloom, 2000. Photocollage, acrylic, and resin on wood panel, 60 x 60 in. (152.4 x 152.4 cm). Collection of Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg

My love of anything organic prompts me to look further. I go to the Brooklyn Museum site and find this wondrous piece that puts me in a swoon and inspires my sad and lonely collage muse. What a celestial masterpiece. I am an instant fan. Can't believe I haven't seen his work before.
More on him here:
Brooklyn Museum
James Cohan Gallery
wiki

"I was thinking of something different"

Steve Specht here...
Here's a piece I did a couple years ago, before I learned Jonathan Talbot's technique. I "refurbished" it and re-matted and framed it (mat and frame not shown here). It's 8" x 10". Enjoy!

Lapel pins

Steve Specht here...
During one of my evening travels through collage-land, I happened to do a little mini-collage with some scraps. After some exploration and experimentation, I thought these might make nice collage lapel pins. Still need to work on some of the details, but I kinda like these. I gave one to MC for Valenine's Day. Enjoy!

Primordial collage

Steve Specht here...
This exhibit looks like a great opportunity to see some of the earliest collages of Picasso and probably some of the initial collages that gave "fine art" credibility to the medium. Check out the story at the New York Times site.
"Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914" is on view from Sunday to June 6 at the Museum of Modern Art
I can't wait to see it!!!

i am a collage assembly line

I am working on a project for my daughter. She is getting married in May and her shower is in March down in Wilmington, NC. I volunteered to make centerpieces for the shower and this has had me collaging my brains out.
The theme for the wedding decor is black and white. She has used music motifs in her invitations (which I also designed for her...) and I wanted to include these ideas in my project.

saturday

I made 12 collages so far, 8 x 7 in size. They will be scanned and printed. Then I will create table cards out of the prints.
The originals? I plan to bind them in a book that i will present to her at the shower.

It's meant a whole lot of crazy collaging and with this theme, I can relax and not worry so much about composition. It's been fun. But I feel like an assembly line!

to you

1-1
Originally uploaded by misphit

Sending you love on wings.

Anthony? Johnny? or no name?

Steve Specht here...
It's been a while since I posted a new piece. Here's one that I finished this weekend. I need to mount it and frame it though. But I'm having a bit of a problem with a 'name'. The title of the piece will be either "One Day Johnny... One Day" or "One Day Anthony... One Day" or "One Day Son... One Day". Does it make a difference if I assign a name to the individual in the vintage photo used in this piece? Hmmm... Any thoughts? And... should I care what others think? In general? Interesting questions methinks. Regardless... Enjoy!

A message from Alexis Anne

Dear Friends,

I hope this finds you all well and enjoying the new year. 

This Saturday at Swarm Gallery in Oakland is the opening reception for Bloom & Gloom, a duo exhibition with my friend Katy Horan and myself. The works I’ve created for this show are all non-figurative, a side of my work that I have always loved personally, but have not exhibited much. 

Other news: studio visits from just last weekend have been posted on Juxtapoz and The Flop Box... Follow those links to check them out. And, on January 30th, keep your eyes peeled for an illustration I made for the New York Times Sunday Magazine On Language column, utilizing football players, of all things. 

Below is the press release for Bloom & Gloom, and a couple images of my new work for the show; hope to see you Saturday!

Best,

Alexis

“Milk Grass”, collage on vintage paper, 14 ½ x 12 in.

alexisanne.com

Sachem

Ho Nee Yeath Taw No Row got promoted to collage today. I really was thinking about ways to float his face on top of script. I came up with all these various techniques, but each of them had faults. I ended up printing my own ink drawing on the paper and then working the collage. His face is so busy already with the tattoo, I didn't really feel the need to add too much embellishment.

Sachem

Ho Nee Yeath Taw No Row

The next thing I need is 2 fine Mohawk Indians. I need them to be somewhat true to what a native American actually looked like. I researched and found information about this fine warrior and Iroquois Sachem. They had fantastic face tattoos and I think I will use these patterns in my upcoming work on this particular vid.

Ho Nee Yeath Taw No Row

Here is his companion, Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow, the grandfather of Joseph Brant who is quite a figure in our local history. These 2 prototypes will now go from drawings to collage.

Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow

Music to my ears

Anthony has completed the music for my first hidef video project. I am so excited about this and I will try to express it! It's a bizarre thing to have a vision that you make visual by creating an artwork. It's another bizarre thing to have a concept, and have someone else complete your concept in another medium. There is such an inner exhilaration that I feel as I listen to the music that was composed for me for my situation on this occasion.

It's like magic. When the things that spawn in our minds become real. The power of it!!! It's like a rush, like a drug, like endorphin execution overload.

It's like a game of toss. I had the ball and passed it to him. He took it for the play, and sent it back at me.

Go listen here and share this excitement with me!

The next part is the video. Finally the moment i have been waiting for! It's this actual moment in a project that I love the most. It's when something has already taken hold, and you are already into it deep enough that you can't turn back. It's when you can't think about anything else but finishing it, or going back there, into the magical part of your own brain where these things live...even in your sleep. It's when the tingling excitement of your accomplishment is felt in your pores and in your organs and you feel it leaving you in it's own birthing. It's when it is happening that I love creation the most.

Gotta go. You know where. Back there....
I'll be back soon.

The clearinghouse dilemma and Jeff Koons

clearing out the house
A couple of posts ago I brainstormed here on the various aspects of distributing my work.
I still am hammering this in my mind, and I have yet to come to any kind of reasonable conclusion.

I posted about 14 items on etsy last weekend. I found that less than satisfactory! Somehow, just listing stuff up there and hoping someone finds it among thousands of other craftwerks seems silly. I am not into posting favorites, and tooling around in forums, or buying online real estate so my things can be seen. I just hate this mode. It's like art pimping. And besides, I would rather be making that talking about what I have already made.
It's such a battle to find the time to devote to marketing. I am thinking about setting up some kind of loose schedule for myself and trying to follow it. Maybe this will help me achieve those pesky marketing-type goals I hate to deal with. I don't have the time to ponder this too long, I would much rather be creating, as as evidenced by my recent posts showing i am back to work on the table again.

I started a facebook page for myself. Now that was a leap! I always think of these pages as pretentious and arrogant. However, I am hoping to populate the page with scans of art that I am disseminating, upcoming shows, etc. Maybe this way I can steer folks to these artworks I want to distribute.
???
It's such a crap shoot!

of course, the clearinghouse needs to sport a pic of the infamous dog balloon

Copyright remains a hot topic in art news and I always read articles pertaining to this subject. Meanwhile, speaking of copyright....we have the Jeff Koons debacle. Apparently he seems all balloon dogs and images of such belong to him. Read about it here or here or here....

Nitefall

Looking across the snow drifted fields I saw nitefall. 

A star studded vaulted sky slowly came into focus while sapphire stars fell to the ground.

This began as a quick super loose watercolor. I really didn't like how it turned out painting-wise, since I did it in a rush, without waiting for layers to dry. It sat overnight.

The next day, I spend time painting the tree branches. These are tedious little devils and to make them at all believable, I really have to be in the zone. It sat overnight.

The next day, much to my chagrin, I paste a huge gold foil star in the upper left corner. Horrors! I ruined all the goodness of this piece in one motion. The glue sticks to watercolor, unlike acrylics, and actually will remove paint and alter the colors so removing the star after I cursed at it for an hour left a huge scar in the prominent sky. It sat overnight, but it bothered me all night.

The next day, I find the perfect piece of swirling cardboard (it escaped the recent big destash even tho I have had it for years) which becomes my descending sky. Problem solved! It sits finished. And it no longer bothers me.

great site about Joseph Cornell

Roaming the web this morning, I found a super nice site about that artist we all know and love, Joseph Cornell. There's such a soft spot for him in my heart. I went to a surrealism show at the Met a few years ago and got to see some of his work up close and personal. It's fab stuff!
This site has some really cool videos that show Cornell's work in motion. I loved this, since at exhibits, you sure can't touch anything.

Cassiopeia 1 - Joseph Cornell

the halfway point

looking towards home
Originally uploaded by misphit

This was the halfway point, prior to all the collage stuff.

She pulled the wind from the sky and birthed a forest

The sky was pale and ominous and the sun tried to penetrate. She pulled the wind from the sky and began to birth a forest.

I told myself I could do whatever I wanted on this canvas, since I just did 2 really tedious pieces. The watercolor was done from memory of a scene behind where I work. I have in mind to build up off the paper and try to make the objects appear to come out at you. In this case it's quite literal, as the netting reaches up off the paper and closer to the viewer.

Highly recommended!

Steven Specht here...
I forward here a message that I received from Jonathan Talbot regarding his up-coming workshops. I attended two of these workshops and they were AWESOME! These will be held in his studio in Warwick, NY (in the Catskill region of New York State):

"Four workshop opportunities have just been posted on my website at www.talbot1.com/workshop. Two are collage-focused, one is about image transfer, and one allows each participant to select the medium of his or her choice.

At www.talbot1.com/workshop you will find additional information, links to comments of and works by past workshop participants, and links to both online and mail-in registration forms. You can also call me at 845-258-4620 for answers to your questions or to register by phone.

I hope one of these workshops will fit your schedule.

Cordially,

Jonathan Talbot"

The wings this all that is

It's difficult to see in this scan, but the buildings protrude from the paper. Such a strange color combination in this one. The pink is purposeful, due to the subject nature of the upcoming video work.