I am getting an early start on the blogging today because there is no way I will make it back home in time to make an Art-o-mat® piece and get it posted tonight.
I am leaving an hour early for the Detroit Derby Girls bout today and I have errands to run first and a birthday present to wrap and, and, and...sooooooo much to do!
I am going to try to hold the images from this collage in my head today as I am rushing around...use it for inspiration to just relax and let things happen. Cool.
I like making these plain, straight forward collages of Animal People making statements. It is quite a challenge sometimes to find the words I am looking for in magazines. Sometimes I have to cut words apart and put THEM together to create the word I need...a collage of words. Fun. But man oh man are those little bits of paper little! My eyes and head feel all wonky now...too much close work in too short a period of time.
Waah, waaah, waah...and I have been typing and/or reading the computer screen for most of the day -- getting ready for a Detroit Derby Girls bout tomorrow. (YAY!)
Back to the collage while I have a few minutes before midnight.
I have made a handful of wordy collages like this, but they are those totally flat magnet strips you can get at Michael's and then I laminate them...they look pretty cool on the 'fridge and they hold pretty darn well. I'd like to do that for Art-o-mat®, but magnets are one of the no-no's...metal machines, and all.
A Boston Terrier puppy kid on his scooter...red background in honor of Teletubby Po and her scooter.
(The Teletubbies crack me up...and you need to watch out for that Po...she may be the smallest and youngest, but she is the strongest and most powerful!)
Well, I felt really odd covering up part of Kettle's pickle guy, but I will get over it I guess.
I forgot to do a "before" picture of the block. I am going to try to remember to do that for the rest of them...but you can see similar ones in the photo of the contents of the boxful of Kettley goodness (one post down).
Remember, I told you earlier in the month that Kettle and I are doing a collaboration series for Art-o-mat®? Well, this is the box FULL of Kettle-y goodness that arrived last week. Yes, it has taken me this long to get up the nerve to get started.
I have swapped art with people before, but I think Kettle was the first person to ever ask me to collaborate on anything.
You may think I'm being silly, but this is very daunting for me!
I was expecting to get more blocks that were his work on the bottom half, with the top half left blank for me (like I showed you back on January 4th). I am hesitant to cover up any of his work with my images. I had to write to him today to ask for a little bit of guidance.
I won't quote you his entire answer, but here is the last bit of it: "...sooooo i dont want you to worry- because there is no wrong answer- i don't want you fretting- - just do what you do and it will be fantastic."
So I guess I will just have at it and try not to worry about it!
I like this finger puppet. It's another girly one and I like how simple it is. It took me close to four hours to make it (I kept changing things)...that, plus if I actually knew how to sew, it would probably go quicker. Sheesh.
And, there must be something odd in the atmosphere around here today. It has been a day of trying to get the colors of things I am trying to show you in photographs correct (or even close). This finger puppet is a deep teal, but it keeps looking very green.
My camera is just not seeing what I am seeing today. It's annoyingly close, but not really.
Liisa, Liisa, Liisa...of course I have a puppet theater, silly!
However, before you ask -- I am not agile enough to take a photo of my hand on the business side of the theater with my camera far enough away on the outside to take a photo of my Art-o-mat® finger puppets in action.
Hopefully I can coerce some friends into playing one day before this 365 project is done.
This theater is 47" tall and 26" wide. Sorry for the odd lighting in here...but to show the truer colors of the characters (and to avoid the glare) I did not use a flash on 2 of the photos.
WTF? Today I went to about 5 stores...I was looking for a very simple item I thought...
Can someone please explain the usefulness of flip flops (and bathing suits) in Michigan in January with temperatures in the teens and snow stacked so high you have to nose your way into traffic?
All I wanted was to purchase a #@% pair of cheap SNOW boots -- geez!
How to describe this? It will be convoluted no matter how I go about it...so here goes.
1. I collect phrases. Notebooks upon notebooks full of quotations, lines from lyrics, tv commercials, movies...you get the idea.
2. I enjoy (very much) the idea of being invisible...in all its connotations. I especially enjoy it when someone thinks they are -- or professes to be -- invisible when they actually aren’t. (And yes, I am easily entertained!) And while we’re at it, let’s stick hallucinations in here as well...being entertained by them (now), living through them...whatever.
3. A few years ago I became enamored of Werner Herzog. (I could listen to him talk all day...I love his accent and phrasing!)
4. Thank goodness for Netfilx -- and easy access to so many films I either missed or was never aware of.
5. I can never get over how one single image can look so different by simply angling it slightly.
6. I am fascinated by the notion of idioglossia and telepathy.
Still with me?
This weekend I watched a combo DVD of three short films by Werner Herzog. The third of the films was (as described by Netfilix) "Precautions Against Fanatics" ... a comic, faux-documentary look at the world of horse racing.
Throughout this short film, the phrase (and variations of it) “you see me” is repeated...it cracked me up. Nevermind that I probably don’t get the jokes or meanings of the film, it just cracked me up. I loved it on my terms.
So...there you have the litany of reference(s) for what the twin monkey doctors are thinking.
Whew!
Believe me...there is rarely this much "meaning" in my collages. This one may not work as well as others visually, but it makes sense to me!
Rule No. 4 -- and that's all I have to say about that.
But here's something else. Even though this guy doesn't have a whole lot going on antlers-wise, he is nonetheless a Barasingha deer.
"The most striking feature of a barasingha is its antlers, with 10-14 tines on a mature stag, though some have been known to have up to 20. The name is derived from this and means 12 tined or horned in Hindi." (From Reference.com)
I thought I knew what this guy really is...but now I'm not so sure. I was thinking he is a zebu, but he could be a Texas longhorn...I am leaning more toward zebu.
In any case, here is a bull man for my Art-o-mat® series called Animal People. I like that he is still chewing some grass.
His right horn extends over the edge of the block. The cup and saucer do not -- I only had this half of the picture.
Okay, I tried taking a photo (without getting glare from the overhead lighting or using a flash) and the result is okay. Dark, but okay.
I got sucked into a guilty pleasure television show and totally lost track of the time. The block was done...but I needed to get in here to my studio and scan it and/or photograph it and then do the blogging.
Yeah, right.
TV and me...it is a lifelong addiction that I am not particularly proud of.
Awww...it's a bulldog baby for my Art-o-mat® series called "Animal People".
I spent the day weeding through a box FULL of magazine clippings. I must have brought it from my old house last year because at the very bottom of the box, under all those clippings, was a short stack of magazines with my old address on them. It was good to get rid of a gigantic cardboard box!
AND it was good to let go of about two brown paper grocery bags of pages and pictures. It was pretty cool/odd to recognize what I was working on and thinking about back then, just from what I had saved.
Now I have to sort the clippings into the correct category trays for storage and cut out the pictures (because it is much easier to match up heads to bodies when they are already cut). But the cutting job can wait. That is a great activity to do while watching tv.
Note: Sorry for the skewed angles, but I had to take a photo vs scan and the magazine pictures are glossy. The scanner wasn't showing the colors very well.
Scribe O' Rice is Jess Lacey. Jess is also Mytilene, a fellow staff member of Detroit Derby Girls. She is also the connection for me between Art-o-mat® and derby...she is how I became involved with DDG and I am how she became involved with Art-o-mat® (when she discovered Greeny and contacted me.)
ANYway...Here is a bit about what Jess does:
Micro-calligraphy on rice grains is an old Indian tradition. This art requires immense concentration, neatness of hand, & keen eyesight.
Michigan artist Jessica (Yiskah) began as an apprentice scribe in 1998 at The Renaissance Festival. In 2006 she decided to branch out & continue to promote the fascinating art of writing on rice.
Each Scribe O’ Rice piece comes as a retro snake-style keychain featuring the inscribed grain of rice in a glass tube filled with natural oil (helps magnify for reading the rice). Series 1 features the rare 7 Knightly Virtues of Faith, Courage, Mercy, Hope, Nobility, Justice & Generosity. As a tribute to AIC 30 pieces are inscribed with Art-O-Mat 2008.
Jess can also make custom items for you. You can contact her at her MySpace page.
Another cutting it close night...I was at a meeting in Detroit that ran longer than I had planned on. I have tomorrow "off" so I will definitely be making an earlier post.
Whew.
Here is a dog man for Animal People...still my favorite thing to make. This one is entitled "Try a Sip".
I just noticed that the background paper scanned funny...it looks like really smooth paint with sponged on black bricks. It isn't. It is really nice handmade (not by me) paper. With nice texture and color.
The detail photo isn't great, but it shows the paper a little better.
I came in from my weekly Monday meeting and sat down, finished the finger puppet I started earlier today and closed my eyes for "just a minute" and BANG it's 11:24!
Anyway...here it is...just in time.
A simple, basic black, girly girl. I really like it.
When I became an Art-o-mat® host, my biggest goals were to meet other Michigan Arto-artists and spread the word about Artists In Cellophane.
Through Art-o-mat® I met the wonderful Valerie Hibbard. We have become good good friends and have lots in common.
Valerie writes a blog called Plain and Practical. Go check it out. Her latest post is about having finished 106 (!) pieces to send to AIC. That is a LOT of work!!!
Besides the Arto-stuff, you will find all sorts of really useful information and ideas at Valerie's blog. Pretty darn cool. And so is she.
Well this took all day! I really ought to take some classes in sewing and embroidery...sheesh.
I used to do embroidery when I was in my early twenties, but that was a l-o-n-g time ago. And my mind is a sieve when it comes to things like this. Ah well.
The "fit' is getting better on these finger puppets, the more I make. I think they are too big for a child's fingers, but they feel pretty good on mine.
Oh man...I MADE it...only 14 minutes left of Day Ten.
The short explanation: There was a Detroit Derby Girl bout today, so I didn't have a whole lot of time today. I'm just glad I got this posted in time! It also snowed about 8 inches and the roads are horrible and it took twice as long to get home.
Here are some shots of the very, very basic prototype for my other upcoming series for Art-o-mat®.
It will be called either Tunnel Vision or Tunnelvision...I haven't decided yet. Feel free to chime in on which you like better (and which way you are thinking of the phrase).
The "real", finished pieces will have accordion fold walls made of nicer papers on the outside than these basic photos show. Each tunnel will have a teensy Animal Person inside. Oh, and the very end wall will have some sort of punched out part with paper over it, so that if you hold it up to the light you can see the punched out area "glow".
I really like Art-o-mat® pieces that are bigger than the box they come in...it is always such a surprise.
