Scrapiteria

Today I became acquainted with the most excellent work of a group called Scrapiteria. They are a group of collagists who work in traditional cut and paste ways...and they have a blog CHOCK FULL of quality collage work! They pick a theme and then members interpret and send in collages to the blog. GREAT idea!
I am really liking this blog!!!!!!!

Business + Art

I hate to admit it, but if you intend to make money as an artist, you are faced with dealing with "the rest of the world". This means hunkering down and looking at yourself from a distance, applying some reality and honesty, and then adapting your strategies to try to meet some goals. Looking at myself and how I am approaching different aspects of selling my artwork is probably the most difficult of task I face. It is never easy to look at oneself objectively. There is the risk that I will have to beat myself down and get into that "guilt" mode, which isn't productive in any way. I tend to get really downer about myself and insecurities don't help me sell art, and in fact in the end insecurities will make me not even want to create the art!
I realize that I am REALLY poor at the marketing thing and sometimes I feel as tho Iam saboutaging myself in order to not succeed!! I have been reading a lot online lately and there is such a wealth of info out there for anyone who has the time to read it. I dread taking even more of my most precious private time to read boring marketing jargon, especially when I could be elbows deep in torn papers, paints and glues. I mean, c'mon! There is no match between paperwork and creativity.
Living a rather sheltered existence in upstate NY, I have to take time out to avail myself of new opportunities and new ideas. I have to go the EXTRA mile to promote myself and bring my art to others. Having 1000 collages sitting on a dusty shelf in my studio is not satisfying to anyone.
Today I came across a free downloadable e-book by David Parrish called T Shirts and Suits — A Guide to the Business of Creativity. I will admit I have not read it through yet, but I have glanced thru a few of the pages and it seems as tho there is some content of merit here. I plan to read it thru and try to glean any inspiration and ideas I can to help beef up my marketing skills.

—About the book, from the website...
"Successful creative enterprises integrate creativity and business. T-Shirts and Suits offers an approach which brings together both creative passion and business best practice.
Written in an engaging and jargon-free style, the book offers inspiration and appropriate advice for all those involved in running or setting up a creative business.
Marketing, intellectual property, finance, competition, leadership - and more - are included in this guide.
Examples of best practice are illustrated in eleven 'Ideas in Action' sections featuring a range of creative businesses and organisations."

David Parrish also hosts a blog where one can find new ideas, information and examples for creative people who want to make their businesses and organisations even more successful.
The eBook is made available for free distribution under a Creative Commons licence. THANK YOU David, wherever you are, for providing the free ebook! I appreciate that!

Julio Falagan

ROCKY Pág02
Originally uploaded by THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE ZINES

ROCKY Pág02

collage comic, found on Flickr

Boonika.org

Boonika.org is a new Boonika Art Project. You’ve probably visited famous Boonika.com at least once in your life time. Or maybe not?
Well, Boonika.org is something similar but, at the same time, very different. Boonika.org also supports top artists but in a whole different way. It works like “news directory” with news and news excerpts from most interesting art blogs and web sites out there.
Boonika.com is a great portal...with lots of really fresh and invigorating artists and ideas. I am psyched to be participating in boonika.org!!! Visit the site and get the down-lo.

David Hochbaum @ Corey Helford

Corey Helford Gallery
presents new works by
David Hochbaum

Corey Helford Gallery is pleased to present “To The Winds” a continuation of “Fool’s Paradise”, first shown in New York in the spring of 2007. Exhibiting his first solo for Cory Helford Gallery, artist David Hochbaum explores the ideas of detachment and confusion in one’s home and familiar surroundings. Creating a narrative about human behavior, his work is an alchemic mixture of history, astronomy, sex and iconoclastic symbols. The characters, an extension of Hochbaum and those close to his life, are messengers, either lost or distracted from their course who search for their higher purpose, as they yearn for peace and of mind and spirit. But these characters are not without hope and strength. They continue their mission to relay the message of love and the overcoming of doubt and fear. They listen, and they tell. Striving towards enlightenment, they stand atop the constricting cities carrying the burdens of the human condition, exposing the beauty and truths for all to see. The exhibition will feature a sculpture installation created from hundreds of ladders and faux birds, completing the theme of nomadic displacement. The reception is open to the public and will take place on Saturday, September 15 from 7 to 10pm. “To The Winds” will be on view until October 6, 2007.

Born in 1971, David Hochbaum was raised in suburban New City, New York. Feeling like an outsider, he connected with the energy and decadence of Manhattan. Hochbaum turned to art as a form of self-expression, and in 1991 attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. Upon graduation, he returned to New York where he currently resides on Manhattan. Hochbaum is known for his unique photo constructions — paintings built on photographs and images — which take on a sculptural quality. He has exhibited in numerous galleries worldwide, including McCaig- Welles Gallery, James Anthony Gallery, Strychnin Gallery, in Berlin and New York, and the Standard Hotel in Los Angeles, and his work has been included in several art fairs such as Scope and Bridge Art Fair. For more information about the artist, please visit www.davidhochbaum.com

Located in the Culver City Art District, Corey Helford Gallery was established in April 2006 by Jan Corey Helford and her husband, television producer and creator, Bruce Helford (The Drew Carey Show, George Lopez, The Oblongs). Passionate art collectors, the Helfords are producers on the art documentary The Treasures of Long Gone John and have partnered to open their fi rst gallery. Corey Helford Gallery presents a wide range of artists, from members of the new fi ne art movement, such as Andrew Brandou, Natalia Fabia, Korin Faught, Eric Joyner, James Naccarato, David Stoupakis, and Sage Vaughn, to early Modernist William S. Schwartz. Notable shows include Charity By Numbers, which was co-curated by Gary Baseman and featured an unprecedented lineup of artists including Mark Ryden, Marion Peck, Shepard Fairey, Todd and Kathy Schorr, Camille Rose Garcia, and Michael Hussar. Corey Helford Gallery presents new exhibitions approximately every four weeks. For more information and an upcoming exhibition schedule, please visit coreyhelfordgallery.com.


Opening Reception
Saturday - Saturday, September 15, 2007 from 7-10pm
On View September 15 - October 6, 2007
Corey Helford Gallery
8522 Washington Boulevard Culver City, CA 90232
T: 310-287-2340
www.coreyhelfordgallery.com
Open Tuesday - Saturday, Noon to 6:00pm

Press and Media Inquiries
Angelique Groh / angelique@charmschoolcie.com
T: 323-363-9338

Provisional Beauty: New Work by Lance Letscher

GG, 2004
Collage on Board
6 5/8 X 5 1/4 inches
SOLD

Amusing Story, 2004
Collage on Board
35 3/4 X 27 3/4 inches
SOLD


I heard from my friend Amy Eckler today and she tipped me off to the very linear work of Lance Letscher. Some of his pieces remind me of quilts...as tho papers and covers were reworked into a large patchwork. There were others that had a geometric style reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright's stained glass windows.
My favorite is this last one, because of it's utter intensity. It is a large work. In person it must be quite impressive.

Surprise Ending , 2004
Collage on Masonite
48 1/8 X 30 7/8 inches
SOLD
You can find more pics on the dBerman Gallery website. I also found some nice shots over at artnet.

John Evans

"The neo-Dadaist and East Village mail artist John Evans made a collage a day from 1964 to 2000, mostly using things he found on the street that day."
—quote from ARTNET

"In a tiny side room in a small, neat apartment on East Third Street near Avenue B, the artist John Evans stores the fruits of 37 years of quiet, obsessive labor. Every day from 1964 through 2000, Mr. Evans collected flotsam and jetsam that caught his eye on the streets of the East Village. He picked up playing cards, business cards, ticket stubs, cigarette packs, fortune cookie fortunes, leaflets advertising rock bands and escort services, and labels for products like Cry Baby Table Grapes and Fitrite ("the Underwear of Modesty"). He also gathered political fliers, scraps of newspapers and magazines, ripped-up snapshots, matchbooks, foreign coins and bills, postcards, an angry note to an incense-burning neighbor, shreds of fabric and wrapping paper.

And every day, Mr. Evans would sit down with an inexpensive notebook, turn to a blank page and paste some of this discarded ephemera against a painted background, creating a collage. Then he rubber-stamped the day's date on it. "
—quote from NYTIMES

Quantuck Lane Press has published a large book of his works. Information about purchasing can be found here.

I really like the freshness of his work, the variety, the mere vastness!! Something happens to collage when one does hundreds of them, they become almost magical.

Laura Levine * April Gertler * in CANDY

I was perusing the latest issue of CANDY, and found a couple of gems within. First there is Laura Levine, who does these crazy collages with stamp backgrounds that I was getting into...

Then there was April Gertler. I adore her deer. And her comment.

Image excerpt from "CANDY"


"You consider yourself an artist as opposed to
photographer, or maybe painter, collages seem
to form a big part or influence in your work?
It is always so important that we are labeled,
and quite honestly I find it a bit hopeless these
days. I, like many other artists, am interested in
many things, and I find it to be too limiting to
say that I am a photographer. I think the word
"artist" is just a bit more open ended.
But in terms of collage, well I started out
making collage and doing books. It was out of
necessity as I didn't have money to buy film or
paper when I was in art college, even though I
was technically in the Photo Department. So I
just made do with what I could find. Collage
has continued to play a very important
element in my work. If I am not making collage
directly then my photography work is
definitely informed by my ideas of the
juxtaposition of images. I also think that what
we see everyday is a collage. Layers upon
layers of things plastered on top of one
another... it seems so obvious."

quote by Abe Ajay

Collage-making, for me, is basically an act of painting, allowing me to indulge in an appetite for immediacy.

Nancy Scheinman

Measure Out the Time of Stars

"The dreamy, jewel-like images of Nancy Scheinman’s paintings
on copper dazzle the senses. Using a rich combination of media:
acrylic, watercolor, charcoal, oil pencil, graphite, and collage,
she creates a complex narrative on both the natural and spiritual
world. "
First, she tools the copper and waits for a suggestive narrative to appear. I like this DADA method of determining the subject matter.

Her work is sold thru
ALLEN SHEPPARD GALLERY
530 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001
212.989.9919
Tues - Sat 12 - 6
As usual, I want to see these up close. Feel them with my fingertips.

TERRAH

Bizarre pages. Bizarre work by Ilija Terrah, collage artist from Slovenia.

BradyART—Street Life Exhibition

< uprooted
2006, 13 x 13 x 2 in. (framed)
Mixed media with found object, thread and oil on canvas. Available for purchase or corporate lease.

Street Life
David Brady and Norm Maxwell
Norm Maxwell Gallery Presents Street LIfe, an exhibition of recent paintings and mixed media works by David Brady and Norm Maxwell.
Exhibition Runs through August
Norm Maxwell Gallery
2049 Sawtelle Blvd.(@ Bundy)
Los Angeles, CA 90025

Man, what beautiful and intense work is done by David Brady! I have to say that I was quite moved while looking at his newest series works, Street Life. There is a really nice match up between subject matter and choice of media. I felt the subtle political messages built up in his work simply by the textures that he chose to reflect them. EXCELLENT work here...I really wish I lived on the other side of the country so I could see these in person! I can't feel the texture from here....except in my mind and imagination!

I am a sucker for the street art movement and I have been watching graffiti since I was a child visiting my grandparents in Brooklyn and Long Island. It gets a serious response from me, especially when used so appropriately. His site has a lot of pieces, including works from his new show, Street Life. I think my favorite piece is "Apathy", shown below.


< apathy
2007, 33 x 61 x 3 in. (framed)
Mixed media with found objects, wire, thread with oil on canvas. Available for purchase or corporate lease.

Wotartist

"Wotartist is unique in being an artist directory run voluntarily by artists themselves. It is a non-commercial site, with the sole aim to promote some of the best artists currently exhibiting on the internet. Designed with ease of use foremost as a consideration, we hope that the buying public, publishers, art students and art agents will all find wotartist a useful tool. Please contact directly with individual artists if you are interested in their work and send selective artists e-cards - which can be used for all occasions. New artists are actively sought out and added to this site daily, so please visit frequently to discover new and exciting art work."

There are a lot of excellent visual artists represented on this site, Wotartist, including several collage artists. This site is one of the 50 internet sites for 2007, according to Time.

I am happy to be a participant of Wotartist, and suggest that you take a look at some of the artists represented there.

SoulCollage—A meaningful Deck of cards

excerpt from book "SoulCollage"
Lois Parks DeCastro does something called SoulCollage. She fascilitates workshops based on the book "SoulCollage' by Seena B. Frost. (available on Amazon.)
Using a 3 step process: 1) collect images 2) create collage 3) interpretation of collage, one goes thru a series of self understanding and discovery.
I have read bits and snippets about collage art being used as a technique in psychotherapy. I can understand this, since images provide links to thought and idea in a different way than words do.
"The author describes a college process leading up to the creation of a personal deck of cards consisting of four categories:
"
--Committee (aspects of the self, such as Inner Critic, Good Little Girl, Drama Queen, you name it
--Community (persons of significance in the life of the persons making the card, whether personal friends or persons of inspiration from history)
--Companion (totemic figures representing chakra forces); and
--Council (archetypical figures such as Death, the Warrior, and other larger forces in one's life).

The process of collecting images to assemble the cards, and working with the cards after making with them in a divinatory or reflective way, provides a way to access one's own inner wisdom while bypassing the verbal part of one's mind. Because the cards are assembled from images that have personal resonance, the deck can have an impact that no purchased tarot cards ever could."
—quote from Amazon reviews.
It reminds me of tarot, but I am not certain if the cards are used in a similar way since I haven't read the book.
"SoulCollage® Cards are for personal use only. They are not intended to be sold, traded or bartered."
Interesting. This is the direct opposite of ATC, (artist trading cards) which were purposefully created for trading, sharing and bartering. OR--ACEO (Art Cards, editions and originals) which are created for the purpose of selling.

Johnson's Petit Musee

Planetarium

Happened upon the Petit Musee online today.
"My work is anything but what I would call clean. Like me, it is subject to time. I like to look at work I've done twenty years ago and see the changes time has brought. Time has always been a preoccupation in my art. I include in my assemblages fossils, metals older than the solar system, strange symbols time has lost, and things of a recent past.
The artifacts made by humans are a puzzle. I have a great deal of trouble with the word natural. To me all that is created in the Universe is natural. I have no trouble with that, it's the "Why of it" that is the problem. I think of these things and do boxes, that to me represent a microscopic image of mind.
In the end it's all a throw away. Some day the Sun will Nova and all the artifacts will be gone. The remembrance of the history human or roach, equal to zero. A Universe now with no color, sound or shape, just being. Maybe ideas too, I have trouble with that, I can't fit them into the fundamental forces or find them in the electromagnetic spectrum. Conclusion: I don't know too much and like a child I still wonder and play...... "
More can be found here.

The Altar of Alter

Ian Francis

A Girl Sleeps Through A Storm Thinking About Something Else
mixed media on canvas
SIZE: h: 27.5 x w: 39.5 in / h: 69.8 x w: 100.3 cm

This mixed media work is really fluid, loose, and so modern that I really love it. The colors are splashed and worked....these are beautiful works. I hate it that I am so rutted in Victorian imagery! My room is chock full of aging papers. I get tired of that look, and so it thrills me to see the color and timely work of Ian Francis. I am not certain how much of this classifies as "collage", but I thought it was worthy of a post.
These works were displayed in a show that just ended at BLK/MRKT Gallery called, Super Coma Fantasy.



Two People Lose Track of Where They Are
mixed media on canvas
SIZE: h: 23.5 x w: 35.5 in / h: 59.7 x w: 90.2 cm

Veil of Secrecy

I have been working on a collage project of massive proportions for over a year now. I did some collages of a decaying town in upstate NY called Sharon Springs. I am working on the digital portion of it now. Download a 10 mb clip of my first collage movie.

Sara - Flora - Floura (Detail)

Sara - Flora - Floura (Detail)
Originally uploaded by guy_on_the_streets

This beauuuuutiful piece of work was done by Elbow Toe--a talented artist from NYC. I really like his work, both from the streets and also this delicately executed breadbox that i found on Flickr. What a treat!
I cannot say enough how I am impressed over the creativity of Elbow toe. He is an inspiration!

Non-Face vs. Face

In looking at Clifford Faust's collage work online, I was immediately forced to notice some obvious differences between his work and mine, but particularly in his treatment of human figures.
In Faust's work, there is a lack of facial features. His figures are silhouettes...and thereby the faces are detailed outlines only, and the features themselves are missing. This immediately detaches me from the expressions that might be on faces, and i am forced to look at the context of the character in order to take a reading on emotion. Most of his works don't include a crisis...so peering into a face isn't exactly a must in order to read into his work. I end up having this kind of floaty attitude about his pieces, since I don't have to look at the face...and I am able to detach a bit from it.
With my work, I end up searching endlessly for faces. (and I always pick these vintage babes with wistful looks. I bet Freud would have something to say about that!!) I know that it is one of the parts of my work that I fret over often. A lot is told in the facial expression...and I suppose even when it is lacking, that also send a message.

Intruder

intruder
Originally uploaded by misphit

Sometimes looking at your older work can be a hoot.

Fun Times!

1000journalsfilm.com

I am in the video clip "the experiment" that is on the 1000journals film site!
I am in this flick...and I cannot wait to see it!


how cool is that???
:)

Julio Falagan

“Central eléctrica”
Pintura y papel sobre telas, 25 x 25 cm. 2005
Wish I could say more about this artist. I don't read or speak Spanish. The work speaks for itself.

Filipa

Waiting for Icarus & Exit

Found a great blog today. Took a look at the work of Filipa from Portugal....this work is painterly but surreal. I just want to feel the texture of these works and rub my fingers on the paint. I can remember seeing Matthew Rose's work up close> I was oblivious to the fact that the entire surface of the paint was crackled and textured. I have a feeling that seeing these works up close would fascinate me. The faces he creates are very expressive. Hannah Hoch's work always seemed so morbid underneath. I don't get that dark feeling from Filipa's work, yet there is something there reminding me of Hoch. Maybe the large faces, the large eyes?



Rapunzel & Venus & Just Waiting & and waiting

collage is the liberation of art prejudice

"If in individual possesses a pictorial sense, whatever he creates guided by this sense will always lie within the domain of painting. Wood, paper, cloth, leather, glass, string, oil cloth, majolica, tin and all metals, colors, blue etc. etc will enter as most legitimate materials in our present artistic constructions.
The quantity and selection of this material will be regulated case by case by our creative spirit, which in matters of art, is the only authoritative arbiter that we admit.
Thus if all categories become modified and destroyed, categories which were completely arbitrary in any case, and which made of art an artificial game perpetrated with colors and canvas, for art this will be an advantage, for it will be liberated from every prejudice and will manifest itself in its greatest sincerity and purity."

—from IN Defiance of Painting, Cubism, Futurism and the Invention of Collage

Mini Artefakts at Borelli Space Gallery

Organized by Linda Feldman in CA, the Mini Human Artefakts show was a secondary show and an offshoot of the larger Human Artefakts exhibit which has already traveled across the world to several galleries from the US to Germany to Australia and New Zealand. Participants of the first show have had to cope with the logistics of sending large artworks across several continents in tandem. The mail costs for art can be astronomical. These pieces were shipped cooperatively by their prospective owners to various locales, thereby reducing the costs.....Participating in this who required a certain amount of digital dexterity on the parts of all involved! Most communication was via the Yahoo newsgroup and even contracts were sent digitally for signing. The show is virtual in addition to being a traveling exhibit, and it can be viewed here. I am going to have to look into an online exhibit for the mini pieces. I have to see if this is possible. Magikglasses would be happy to sponsor this in a permanent place online...

The Mini Human Artefakts exhibit is at Borelli Space Gallery until August 30. Several international collage artists are represented in this exhibit of collage and assemblage. I am pretty excited, one of my pieces sold!


Borrelli Space Gallery
4411 Park Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92116
Opening: Monday, July 30, 2007
Reception: Saturday, August 18, 2007
4pm-6pm public and 6pm-8pm Gallery party for participants and invited guests
Closing: Thursday, August 30, 2007

Anne Polashenski

Chiyogami Faux Pas Obliteration, 2006, 9 1/8 x 7 1/8 x 1 3/4 inches, C-print, Chiyogami patterned paper, museum board, gouache.


From Her Site:
::"My current work incorporates textile patterns and photographs of figures in patterned garb. The patterns act as camouflage that hides and protects the figures. The patterned worlds that I am creating have a vulnerable aspect, in that, if the figure shifted out of position, one pattern could overlap onto another and the figure would be revealed and left exposed. Therefore the body is locked into place in order to ‘survive’. The idea of pattern leaving your clothing and obliterating your environment is quirky and humorous, but it is also self-critical and psychologically charged, dealing with issues about control, power, entrapment and escape."::

This is ultra patterned art...and I just adore patterns that overlap each other and send your eyes colliding with each other to see what is happening....This work is extremely enticing with it's 3-d construction. I am enamored!

Thomas Schostok's Gluebooks

Thomas Schostok....a few years ago we featured him in our little zine Art Erratica. He was generous enough to share hi-res scans of his work across the seas from German to our little production. He does really loose collage and gluebooks. Gluebooks. We don't generally call our books gluebooks over here in the states...at least I don't. It is an interesting and descriptive term tho.
He did these books a few years ago. I am not certain what he is up to at this point, altho from the looks of his site, he has a bit in print these days. His site is definitely worth a look. And follow the links to his Gluebooks for a really radical viewpoint.