Collage Art
Finally got my collage mounted and off to the National Collage Society Small Works Show. I've titled this one "Impressions." It's just 4 x 6 inches. I did several but could only send one... I've enjoyed working on them.
I saw the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater today. What an amazing performance. So many effortless looking movements and intriguing choreography, amazing artistry and athleticism. I kept thinking how great it would be to photograph the dancers, even though it would be a blur, and use some of those abstract qualities as the basis for a collage composition. I have several pieces that I feel were influenced by my daughter's ballet studies. They are more carefully composed and balanced, as ballet tends to be. The photo shows a piece called "Arabesque" that was done quite some time ago. It would be fun to try something along those lines that incorporates more movement and speed. It is great when one kind of art is able to lend ideas to another kind of medium -- it was a very inspiring afternoon.
I just posted the whole series of collages from a commission I did a couple of years ago for the Denver Seminary's library to a new (to me) artists' registry, Artist-Listing. There were 10 pieces, 20 x 20", that responded to the elements of creation: Sky/Air, Earth, Light, Water, and Animate Creation. I did two abstract pieces that related to each concept in a non-denominational way. "Sky 1," pictured here, is the first piece in the series that I finished. Anyway, if you click on the link above, you can see all of them.
I have had a couple of unfinished pieces hanging around the studio, 24 x 18", that were begun several years ago. Most of the background is composed of joss paper with metallic silver leaf or a gold ink/leaf combination. I have been adding elements to this one and it is now finished and titled, "Improvisation." This photo was taken with uneven lighting so that you could see some of the metallic quality of the joss paper -- it does show a bit in upper right. The metallic has a nice quality that changes the composition quite a bit as light moves across the piece and the metallic becomes more or less prominent. (The gray rectangles at the bottom of the piece are the same metallic pieces without benefit of reflection.) This one is going to be hard to photograph for my portfolio/website!