Boise Weekly Cover Art

Artist Statement: Thank goodness for simple pleasures.

One of my found object pieces was chosen for the week of July 4th cover. Originally it was submitted for a bike scavenger hunt the paper was sponsoring but the event was cancelled as mostly everything has been this spring/summer. The title is "Ride On" and is comprised of a wood panel painted red, a piece of corrugated tin with a wooden shape of the US that I decorated with tape and paint, brads and a paper cut out of of Idaho. Surrounding the shape is a bike chain ring with silver beads. I've had 2 people contact me since the cover to offer to donate odds and ends to me. Thank you.

Process of a Collage

Much Ado About Nothing 18" x 24"

Step 1 get rid of the white of the canvas by brushing a couple different of colors around, it doesn't matter if you cover the canvas completely. 

Next I went through my stash of ephemera and started cutting, tearing and gluing, tissue paper, flowers from a birthday card, a canvas bracelet that was a gift, parts of a calendar and a business card from an art studio in Hawaii. 

Step 3: More layering of papers with addition of white paint circles and oil pastels overlapping some of the papers to give a more unified feel. The wooden bicycle was later removed... 

...when I found an old page from the Shakespeare play "Much Ado About Nothing" I was making this piece for a show titled  Love and Heartbreak. One of the quotes I used was from Beatrice, "A dear happiness to women, they would have else been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humor for that: I would rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me."

For some three dimensionality, I took a completed small piece right off my studio wall named "button candy' and glued it at the bottom slightly to the right of center.  This piece was made with buttons and resin. Other 3D items include a miniature circus horse from my collection, a vial of glitter, a resin heart and a glass blown fish drink stirrer. 

A BMX Assemblage

I got a message the other day asking if I would be interested in creating one of my original bike collages as a gift for a BMX racer in Texas. Of course I said yes.
First I looked up Anna Johnson whom at age 13 has made a name for herself as a National BMX Champion, has her own website and has already been racing for 7 years! I cut out a few pictures of her racing along with logos of her sponsor.
Then I took a bicycle chain and printed it with ink on paper to make a pattern and found other words and ephemera to complete the background.

I found an old rustic frame and used bike parts to make it 3D.

The last step is 2 pour 2 part resin over the whole piece and then lay the pieces in the resin. I changed up the chain to make a heart around the 3 cyclists near the center.

I hope she likes it. This is a thank you gift from her art teacher for being a great art assistant. 

Happy Home

Happy Home 8" x 10" $100

I love all the layers in this piece. The base is a stretched canvas turned upside down. In the opening is a  wood /wax collage piece of women and children and dogs.  Next to the collage on the left is a miniature woman that looks like she is cleaning.  Above her is the letter H and the word Happy. On the right of the collage are game pieces that spell HOME.

The next layer is a piece of glass and then a window frame. On the window frame are two rusted keys and a little bitty bird. On top of the window frame is a small class jar filled with gold and silver beads.

The back is a finished collage. 

More Bike Art

8 1/2" x 11" Collage with bike parts

As I wrote several weeks ago I have been making a lot of bike themed art as this year I have really gotten into mountain biking.  In November I  received a really nice 29" mountain bike from my husband, which made riding so much more fun. We had a very puny snow year so I got to ride all winter. (in the mornings when the ground was still frozen) 


Then came spring and I participated in the Whiskey Off Road in Arizona, raced at the local ski resort in Idaho...qualifying for Nationals!  This year I also road for the first time on slick rock in Utah, sweet single track in Oregon, and across the Golden Gate bridge onto the single track of Marin County.  This combined with my passion for making art from cast off items = no brainer, bike themed art!!

Working Night Light made from rear cassette and found objects

side view of night light

6" x 8" collage with wax and found objects

Bike Jewels SOLD

Collage/Assemblage with Resin 7" x 9"

Bike Gear Star 5" x 5"

Bike Wheel collage/assemblage 25" round

side view of Bike Wheel collage/assemblage

Bike Art

 My two passions this past year have been Mountain Biking and making art. I have now started a series of bike related art works. The first one is rather large and will be proudly displayed on my back deck (if I don't sell it first)

Last year one of my husbands friends gave him this bike wheel to give to me to see if I could use it in a piece of art. It went into my storage room until I could decide what to do with it.

When we moved into our home almost 5 years ago, this piece of round wood was in our storeroom, I put it up to the bike wheel and it was the same size! I had my husband drill a hole in the center to I could attach the bike wheel.

 

 I then started to add paint and paper to the wood. The theme of the piece is biking in Idaho.

I then added bike gears that I got from the Boise Bicycle Project. As well as other 3 D objects.

The side of the wood has a bicycle chain and 1/2 screwed into the sides. The chainbreaker used to take the chain apart to make it fit, broke...so that was also glued to the surface! The edge of the wheel, were the tire would normally be, I glued orange and green gems all the way around. This took some time as I could glue about 10 at a time while it was standing on it's side so they wouldn't slide off.

The finished piece- and the wheel actually spins.

Homage Collage Reflection Workshop

I will be teaching a two-hour workshop on how to create your own personalized 12" x 12" mirror including the wide dark wood frame. You choose the subject be it a friend, relative or something you would like to honor with this personalized piece of art.

When making my sample for the workshop, I considered who would I honor? and guess what I decided -to make it for myself! It's always so hard parting with all these projects I make that I thought, "This way I get to keep it"

First step is gathering all your pieces of ephemera...tickets, pieces of old greeting cards, buttons, old jewlery, photos..etc. and laying them all out on the mirror frame.

 The hard part is taking everything back off so you can glue down the bottom pieces  and then remembering where everything goes. I did take some photos so I could look back but didn't have to. The memory still works... sometimes :)

 The next step was overlapping the papers with tissue papers.

 Then added a layer of further embellishments and some acrylic paint.

Using E6000 glue I added the 3D elements.

The final step was coating the whole project with Gloss Heavy Gel.

This workshop will be held Thursday October 13, 2011 from 5-7 pm at Twigs and Twist 1304 W. Eastman St. in Boise. To register call Gretel @ (208) 342-0600 The class will be limited to 10 people. Cost is $50 and includes mirror with 12" x 12" wooden frame and basic supplies.

What to Bring:

Ephemera (Items of collectible memorabilia, typically written or printed ones, that were originally expected to have only short-term usefulness or popularity.) related to a theme or a person.

These can be small 3 dimensional objects such as buttons, jewelry…miniatures of any sort.

And 2 D papers such as maps, ticket stubs, photographs, interesting papers, stamps, tissue papers, such as old sewing patterns, gift wrap etc.

*Assortment of ephemera available for purchase at Twigs and Twist

Mi Recuerdo de San Francisco

My newest collage with 3D objects. The paper bits are all from my recent trip to San Francisco. The collage was glued onto an oval wooden plaque 9" x 18" that hangs by a rope. The plaque was purchased at the "bins." Where reject items from the thrift store are only 50 cents a pound.

Be sure to check out The Altered Page blog.

Where Seth has started the 5th edition of The Pulse -- The State of the Art -- "a survey in words and pictures of the online artist community. The Pulse is a collaborative project that aims to introduce you to new artists, help you get to know familiar faces even more, and allow you access into the creative hearts and minds of a very talented crew of individuals. More than 130 artists have answered a series of questions which make up The Pulse. Their responses will be presented in a series of online posts."

I am happy to be a part of this collaboration.

What happened to October?

The first weekend of October I went to Art & Soul with my friend Nancy and had a great time. I created a wonderful blog all about our adventures in Portland and fun classes we took, but when I tried to publish...it would not cooperate. Then got a call from Texas that my dad was in the hospital. I have been in San Antonio for 16 days, arrived back home the evening of the last day of the month. Dad can use all the prayers you've got.

The first photo is my 3D collage from Crystal Neubauer's class. We learned how to cut plexiglass with a jewelers saw and sandwich the main element of the collage in between 2 pieces.

The second photo is one of 4 pieces I completed in Micheal DeMeng's class. I loved his definition of Assemblage: "gluing crap together." We learned lots of new techniques for layering color and making things look old and creepy. He does a class in Mexico every year for Dia De Los Muertos, I hope to be able to go next year.