"Potential" in National Collage Society's annual exhibit

Happy to hear that my collage, "Potential," has been juried into the National Collage Society's 26th Annual Juried Exhibit!

For the first time, the exhibit "Green & Global" will be online with no need to ship work to a gallery or museum. The notification included the statistic that 211 artists submitted a total of 412 entries... 32 entered with slides and 380 submitted digital image. (Slides are obviously becoming a thing of the past when it comes to art presentation!)

I'm curious about how many entries were juried in... since wall space was not an issue! The exhibit will be available online for a year beginning November 1st. I'll be sure to post a link when the exhibition website goes live.

(Addendum: This exhibition is now available for online viewing here.)

Galvanized for Day of the Dead

I've been wanting to try out some different supports for collage and had some small pieces of galvanized metal in the studio... So I used a 6 x 4" piece to create a collage ofrenda to donate to A Book About Death's Day of the Dead exhibition at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center in Fort Worth, Texas, sponsored by the FluxMuseum.

"Retablo 2010" (above) has acrylic paint applied to the metal, with collage added, and was coated with a UV varnish. The collage elements seemed to adhere well to the galvanized metal and I like the very understated, industrial, sparkle. I will definitely experiment further with using metal in my work. The composition is intended to be somber, thought-provoking, and uplifting all at the same time... hope I've accomplished that in some small way!

Finis: subject to interpretation

Several people have asked to see the final piece that emerged from the work I wrote about in an earlier "Chaos of collage composition" blog post.Here's a better view of the collage I eventually titled, "Subject to Interpretation." Once I cleared away the chaos, it had seemed complete.I submitted it to Spark Gallery's open show this summer, "Biennial 2010: Big Themes/Small Works," juried by Jill Crow, and was pleased to be included in the show during July.The collage is 10 x 10 x 1" and is composed of contemporary recycled papers applied to a cradled wood panel. Some collage elements continue and wrap around the 1" edges so it still appears a bit differently when hung.

Denver's Biennial of the Americas

I've thoroughly enjoyed dipping in and out of events related to Denver's Biennial of the Americas over the last month. I didn't make it to the more heavily promoted Roundtable speaker series, but have focused my attentions on the art happenings around town.

"The Nature of Things" exhibition at the renovated McNichols Building is quite wonderful. Westword's Michael Paglia has written a comprehensive review of the artwork there and elsewhere. I've been to several really good talks as part of the speaker series there too.

 I love the whimsical transformation of the outdoor space by Jeronimo Hagerman (see above). Adding the vegetation to the capitals on the building is intriguing from the exterior but also refreshing and engaging when glimpsed from the windows on the third floor of the exhibition. I just wish the McNichols exhibition and talks had been free throughout the Biennial, rather than just during the last week -- I think they would have been so much better attended and as a result provoked much more consideration and discussion.

Civic Center Park looks fabulous. The gardens are amazing this year with creative plant combinations that compel me to pull out my camera again and again.

My favorite Biennial work is the temporary public piece, "1.26," suspended over the street between the Denver Art Museum and Civic Center Park. Janet Echelman has created a netted aerial work that is vaguely interesting by day but phenomenal when viewed at night. My photos don't do it justice so if you are in the area, try to get down to see it some evening soon. (Or see better photos on the artist's website via link above.) The work was inspired by a simulation of the February 2010 Chilean earthquake and speaks to the "temporality and interconnectedness surrounding the 1.26 microsecond shortening of the day that resulted from the redistribution of the earth's mass." Most of the people looking at it last night seemed to think it looked like a jellyfish or a butterfly, but from certain vantage points it has both ethereal and explosive qualities. Truly wonderful.