After We Left

I originally started this as a mock-up for a fabric piece I was thinking about. However, after adding such a large number of layers I just decided to let it be as a digital collage. I'll print it onto paper, but stitching it is out.

The theme behind this piece is one that I draw from frequently - what happens when humans disappear from a place. The idea that nature will quickly cover over the traces. I find that to be a strangely comforting thought, especially seeing how horribly we have and continue to muck up our environment.

Leaping Man

Leaping man - digital collage

I've recently received a couple very old scrapbooks. One is from my great-grandmother and the other is from my grandmother (both on my father's side). In one of the scrapbooks, I found an odd little magazine clipping of a performer named Hal Sherman. The promotional photograph was from a revue called "Hellz-a-Poppin." I don't know who the writer was but Sherman was referred to as "..a misfit, a little man in a big world; still a tramp, but a worldly Broadway tramp, a bitter, dancing humorist of the banana-peel school." I like that.

I created the background by scanning a hand-written letter from my great-grandmother and repeating and overlapping the text. The "leaping man" is Sherman.

My piece from Quotes Illustrated

I got the go-ahead to show my artwork that is published in Quotes Illustrated by Lesley Riley. This is a digital collage that has scans of painted surfaces and black and white negatives that I further manipulated in Photoshop. I was happy that I was given the Diane Arbus quotation since she's one of my photo heroes.

Published art!

I'm really excited to share that I have had one of my digital collages included in a book on quotations. The book is by Lesley Riley and is called "Quotes Illustrated." The book is now available through CreateSpace and Amazon. I'm awaiting my copy, which should arrive on Wednesday. I'll report on the book when it arrives.

Nothing like having some of your art included in a collection to make you feel like it's worthwhile. I'd work even without the recognition, but it's still nice.

Digital collage

Today I found myself working on a digital collage, which is something I haven't done in a long time (probably not since I stopped teaching Photoshop classes). I had an idea of what it was going to be about but realized at the end that it was something I hadn't planned.

My mother-in-law died on Saturday morning at the age of 86. She was the last of her eight siblings left alive after her older sister died two months ago. It's a sad time because Doris is gone but also because it signifies the end of an entire generation of that side of my husband's family.

The collage I made expresses the idea of releasing one's hold on life and moving away from the world, our friends and families, and our identities. As I was making the piece, I started thinking about the Passenger Pigeon and its extinction. I found a newspaper article written by James Audubon about the abundance of the bird. The text that is in the background is that newspaper article. I hadn't connected all these ideas to Doris until I finished the collage and was pondering it. Strange what your subconscious will express when you're not paying attention.

Freedom flight