Brainpicker has a lovely review of South Indian printer Tara Books, which ‘gives voice to marginalized art and literature’ through its cooperatively run publishing business. The Night Life of Tress is an exemplary product. Enjoy this video of the production process and luminous finished product:
Can’t express how excited I was to recently discover Studio Muti via the Twitter feed of Kenyan digital artist @Jepchumba and the African Digital Art Journal. This bangin’ duo from Cape Town (disappointed its not somewhere else, but its just a matter of time!) has a scifi pop-surrealism post disco groove that I really like. [...]
The New York Times will publish on Sunday a great series on education in America. Featured will be a brilliant commissioned piece of taped graphic art by Stephen Doyle, posted here. The photography really draws it together. I found myself really liking the textured wrinkes and scrunches of tape along the floor. Follow the link [...]
No, I haven’t had that but it is the theme of an imagined piece of artwork that I put together for the subscription art service Papir Masse. Back in July PM issued a call for submissions, “summer postcards” – whimsical, sultry, true or imagined, PM was looking for some steamy summer reading and art. I [...]
Continuing to work on wood panel I’ve been trying to loosen up from a conventional texture-collage approach. What else can be done with a rich and varied texture as background? Instead of a intentional color what happens when you go completely loose and forget about whether it makes sense from a composition standpoint? What happens [...]
I’ve got to confess a real enjoyment of sepia-toned, shadow-suffused and steam-filled imagery of the Victorian period. There’s a rich mystery locked up in the works of the period – from the early greats like Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, and HG Wells to contemporary conjurers like China Mieville, William Gibson, and possibly even Neal Stephenson [...]
A friend recently asked if I could make a “cat sarcophagus” for her daughter’s upcoming eighth birthday party. Along with the proposal she included a snapshot of a “cat mummy” from London. Coincidentally, a few months prior, National Geographic had a cover issue dedicated to pet mummies of ancient Egypt, which my family had loved. So plenty [...]
As a mixed media artist, I’m always on the lookout for intriguing, clever, playful, whimsical ways of using ordinary materials to being delight to the urban experience. A few ideas have come to mind recently – principally as a result of a cool project I learned about during the annual MIT IDEAS Competition retreat I [...]
In April MixedMedia/Peace Tiles was able to support two American artist-educators in their travel to Cyprus to work with young people there through the arts. The goal was to surface a ‘visual voice’ on the partition, peace, and the prospect for dialogue to get there. You can read about that process here. Below is a [...]
A bit of Magritte along with a humorous dose of techno-reactionism, whipped together this piece for Howard Rheingold, who long ago (think “SmartMobs”) got me excited about the large-scale social potential of mobile devices. He once lent me a vintage copy of Whole Earth Review for a paper I was putting together with Robert Cavalier [...]
For a while I’ve been working to “blow up” my collages – break out of the small-scale mold that has been impressed on me by the Peace Tiles work. Recently, the folks at the Green Mountain Film Festival created an opportunity to go large – with the necessary level of risk involved to really push [...]
About a year ago a friend I’d met at Goucher College during a Peace Tiles workshop I’d run provided me with an opportunity to push forward an idea I’d had for a while: reproduce children’s artwork produced in a Peace Tiles workshop in a way that would be appropriate to a lively public environment and [...]
One of the delights in taking a meander to – and through – a good antique or salvage shop is the discovery of once functional objects that have been shorn, busted, unmade and unusable. Yet a glimmer of their former utility is there – something to suggest that it should, or once would, do something. [...]
The poem that is the subject of this box – a steamy summery kind of musing, complete with blueberries, olympics, and humidity – is taken from the Fall 2006 ESOPUS magazine. Even though the poems, written in the ’80s by Vincent Katz, are about a breakup, I found them to be much more immediate, intimate, [...]
A few summers ago I experimented with thin, 3/16-inch plywood to produce textural finishes on top of which anyone could compose a visual engaging, personalized collage. I then took the dried mixedmedia work, sanded it up a bit, and wrapped in an arresting detail/section from a magazine cover. I composed little packages of collage items [...]
As a mixed media artist, I’m always on the lookout for intriguing, clever, playful, whimsical ways of using ordinary materials to bring delight to the urban experience. A few recollections came to mind recently – principally as a result of a cool project I learned about during the annual MIT IDEAS Competition retreat I attended [...]
A friend recently asked if I could make a “cat sarcophagus” for her daughter’s upcoming eighth birthday party. Along with the proposal she included a snapshot of a “cat mummy” from London. Coincidentally, a few months prior, National Geographic had a cover issue dedicated to pet mummies of ancient Egypt, which my family had loved. [...]
Around the holidays last year I’d made a promise to knock out a washboard table with a collage top for a family member. I’d gotten the basic idea from the remarkable Victoria Romanoff in Ithaca, New York at a meet up we’d had years ago.This go around, I’d found a couple of pricier washboards with glass rubbing plates. Cleaning [...]
Paris Review 188 has a lovely collection of eleven collages by the American poet John Ashbery, 81. He’s a very interesting fellow, and if I’d ever been at Bard would have enjoyed learning from him. Academically credentialed, literarily plugged in, culturally invested – at least through the ’70s. Its not clear to me what has roused [...]
The German artist Martin Kippenberger who died in 1997 has a large installation of his work that sprawls among the white galleries of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I’m not terribly familiar with this artist, but impressed that he’d turn a Gerhard Richter painting into a table – he’s as playful and anti-establishment as [...]
Scrappy notes from a break-neck talk.Dealing with some concepts, linear time of Carnot (1846) forward – which intersects with music, eg harmonics and the end of time. Movement toward entropy. Question emerged, is it possible to move beyond the ruin of it all? NO! Let’s destroy it. So, with art and history, source of these [...]
Last week’s New Yorker cover struck me with some mixed emotions. Great to see it take the format of Time, Life and other “people” oriented news magazines by featuring the portrait of a person of prominence (yeah, whatever). Actually, a very important figure, our new President, Barack Obama.But a couple of things seemed amiss. First, [...]
Thanks to dear friend Jon for this must see international video collaboration. I am completely taken with the idea of using the urban landscape as a canvas. And even though the subject is kind of dull and reductive, the inspiration is brilliant!
In memoriam Perhaps more later…
While I was in Ithaca last week, I had the pleasure of meeting Victoria Romanoff, restorationist and artist. One of the pieces of ‘functional salvage art’ she introduced me to was her “washboard table.” The idea is elegantly simple: for an open-faced (front and back) table, join two antique washboards together with a top surface [...]
While in New York recently for a “Greening the Arts” symposium [see below], I had the very good fortune to meet an artist, preservationist, and self-described “recycling fanatic” Victoria Romanoff. Touring her converted firestation – which serves as her home, studio, and office – I was struck by how full and well-lived her life is, [...]
My buddy Ward Joyce, by day a gifted architect, is working on something with his jewelry-making pal that I never thought would work: bicycle sculpture. In their inimitable way though they’ve brought a great conceptual edge to an otherwise whimsical public art project. Here’s an excerpt from coverage in our local paper: MONTPELIER – Moving [...]
During the weekend of April 11-13, more than a dozen Twinfield staff, parents and students helped to sort, record, and mount the more than 450 “Peace Tiles” that would compose a new mural in the school’s cafeteria. The Peace Tiles – individual collages on 8-inch square wood panel – each responded to the question, “What [...]
Working between my daughter and an art project for the the Green Mountain Film Festival I caught this lovely shot of sunlight on chalk – with plaster of paris all over my hands.
One of the fun pieces of work for the last couple of years is participating in the Green Mountain Film Festival – as an Operations Committee Member, a film viewer and as a participating artist. This year, working with two friends/colleagues who are both gifted – one is a clothing maker/costume designer and the other [...]
Mine is the bottom right. The “cloud” text says, Children of the earth moulders of clay, movers of rock. In making the tile, I was struck by how well the lighting worked between the girl and the cloudy background I’d painted. That was a pleasing result. The concept continues my interest in the representation of [...]
Crossing the border from Richford, Vermont into Sutton, Canada is always a delight. Not only is Richford this post-industrial gem of a Vermont town just waiting for a revival, Sutton is this understated gourmet haven (yes, it even boasts a cheese shop, chocolate museum and creperie among other delights) with a vibrant arts community. Sutton [...]
Today marks the final day of my work with Twinfield students. All in all it was a lovely experience. The students were so welcoming, and most eager to experiment and “play,” which is a big part of what its all about. I think its fair to say that they are really excited to see what [...]
[From the Times Argus ] High school students, parents and teachers worked side by side in Twinfield’s cafeteria Tuesday, absorbed in combining paints, bits of paper, lettering and treasures they had brought from home to create tiles that express their sense of place. In another part of the building, the elementary students were creating their [...]
Begins tomorrow morning. I’ve worked hard to develop a set of materials that I hope can effectively guide classrooms into thinking about the topic, “What is my place,” while not taxing teachers. Tomorrow morning I spend the day making 45-min presentations to all of the grades. Its a bit like a charrette. In K-4 we [...]
At the end of “The Prophet,” in the company of the seeress Almitra, Almustafa bids farewell to the people of Orphalese, speaking of the misty nature of wanderer. But also about comings again, and truth and the fulfillment of love. “It is life in quest of life in bodies that fear the grave,” he says [...]
A recent re-reading of Khalil Gibran’s “The Prophet” got me thinking about journey’s recently, beginnings and endings. I’ve been in the studio a bit lately as well, going through some old family photographs, letters… bits and pieces of lives strewn across the globe with these vignettes of universality. A journey is an unwritten story… and [...]
A recent post to an art educators list I subscribe to got me thinking about art and action, and when the risks artists take cease to be acceptable modes of expression. The case in question is a Toronto film and video student who carried out the following action: A 24-year-old student, Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson, at [...]
Sony has been tearing up the adspace for high definition televisions with its line of colorful ads for its Bravia line of screens (ie Balls, Fireworks). The latest contribution to the oeuvre was realized by director Frank Budgeon (Gorgeous Enterprises), who used an insane amount of colorful plasticine (its like play-doh but not) to create [...]
A few weeks ago I was sent an interesting link from my father about an interesting group in Canada that makes large-scale murals from individual fine-art paintings. The results were striking, and got me thinking about the possibilities of using mosaic techniques for Peace Tiles – online as well as using physical Peace Tiles. I [...]
[Crossposted from peacetiles.net] A few days ago my father introduced me to a mural process employed by the Canadian arts group NOA Productions, which has developed what they call “Mural Mosaics.” They just completed their most recent project for the Town of Cochrane, which engaged nearly 200 area artists in the creation of as many [...]
A few months ago there was a show at our local coffee joint, Capitol Grounds. There were some large collages that I remember impressed me at the time for their overall composition, though I felt the technique was less resolved than perhaps my eye enjoys. But But they still made a big impression on me: [...]
In getting ready for a small show I am putting up locally, I’ve been obsessing over the archetypes of journeys – and how any “journey” has a beginning, middle, and an end. Rather Oedipal: four legs, two legs, three legs… Anyway, its all a big swill right now though some gems are beginning to emerge. [...]
Continuing my experiments with what i am calling the Madou technique, composed this image using sand, string, Ugandan bark cloth, printed cloth, paper, wood and acrylic paint. I wasn’t working with any idea more direct than the sense I got from Madou’s work of things tied together, like the mask used by the disfigured character [...]
July has gotten me back in the studio after a June’s worth of cleaning. This month also finds me working to develop some study aids – exercises in color, simplicity, texture. Small constructions on wood panel that reflect some principle of good design and technique. One of the people who is presently inspiring me in [...]
I’ve been having fun over the last several weeks preparing invitations to our MixedMedia workshop welcome celebration. More than 25 unique collages have been created and delivered. Each is made of paper and acrylic on 1/4-inch wood panel.
Had a really fun time working with high school students in the art program at Cabot School in Vermont. Two classes, about 1.5hrs each – had to whip through my introduction on collage so they could get the work. The first group was a sophomores with whom I’d already worked. Their task today was to [...]
Via the OntheCommons.org blog and their guest blogger Don Russell of Provisions Library in Washington, DC I encountered Swoon, a 30-something New York Street artist who mixes up graffiti and decollage. The New York Times has a wonderful audio slideshow of her work that can be found in alleyways and intimate side-streets across the city. [...]
My dear friend-colleague-artist co-conspirator Darlene Charneco was telling me about some opportunities for collaboration that are opening up this summer, and pointed me to the website of the Moroccan artist Salima Raoui. In the “Paintings” section of her website Salima has the following quote from the surrealist poet Paul Eluard (French): It is the warm [...]
Had a wonderful opportunity today to work with a group of highschool students from our town school – one senior and five sophomores – to discuss and work with collage. It was a fun opportunity to free-flow about the roots of collage, how I got the process and techniques I’m now using as well as [...]
The title of a song from Porgy and Bess caught my eye. I began with a piece that was to explore, using pulpy, sumptuous tones and textures the tied up lustrous bundle of desire that a woman is when at her powers full. I had selected a diaphanous image of my “Venus” of pale blues [...]
This time of year, my thoughts flit from mystery cults to “Venus” by Rubens in the Uffizzi, not unlike the sparrows in the front yard that make their way between our cranberry tree with its first timid buds and the seed feeder on the porch. As I work the soil with my hands and scrub [...]
A friend and colleague over in Salt Spring, British Columbia just returned from a volunteer trip to Lesotho, in Southern Africa, where she was helping to organize and plant some food gardens. When she went there, she brought some Peace Tiles made by young people in here community. When she returned, she brought along some [...]
Just back from a wonderful two nights in Montréal where the wash of history, art, and commerce never ceases to reinvigorate my satisfaction with Canada. Of course, coming from a Vermonter, that might not sound so special: what expectations of culture can one hold for the least significant state in the Union? Quips aside, Montréal [...]
3 exhibitions: Ingenious3. Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Feb10 – Apr22.07. Jean-Pierre Gauthier | Jérôme Fortin | Guy Ben-Ner I always like to go to the musée d’art contemporain here in Montreal, on Wednesday evenings. Not only because it’s free after 6pm, but because the atmosphere is electric. The place is crowded, mostly with young [...]
I was trying to think up a way to bring some excitement and “buzz” to this year’s 5th of May activities that we’ll have at our home this year. I got to thinking about creating personalized invitations that still have a standard look and feel and don’t tax too much in their production demand. Then [...]
I’m looking forward to visiting Montreal this weekend with my family. In particular, looking forward to a visit to the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal where three quirky exhibitions are on view. One of them is a showing of recent large-scale works by the Canadian assemblage artist Jérôme Fortin, who has been on a swift [...]
In 1996, my good friend Richard Dana – who I have to confess gave me some great breaks and tolerated my early experiments with good humor! – had an early exhibition of works at the University of Maryland. The exhibition was catalogued in the first volume of the short-lived journal “Encontro,” an electronic publication of [...]
Nick Bantock, the celebrated illustrator, writer and yes collage artist bares some of his trade secrets in this lush volume from Chronicle Books. Nick writes it best: Imagine a young woman sitting in the accounts payable department of an Italian trading office in 1910. The afternoon is dragging interminably. She drifts into a reverie and [...]
So I was pedaling around the internet early this morning, and I arrived at the online doorstep of the Long Island artist Kasha. This great big blue knocker was hanging in the middle of this ancient wood-slab door with wrought-iron hinges. A crow was off in the distance, noisily grinding his beak away against the [...]
These days it seems that way to me: I keep finding the coolest people doing great work north of the 45th parallel. My most recent encounter is Gerard Dubois, a French illustrator with a light, classical touch, who lives with his family in Montréal, Canada. He seems to get around quite a bit, selling corporate [...]
I want to make a quick footnote here to welcome the artist Mary Bogdan to mixedmedia. Mary has generously agreed to join me and – hopefully! – a growing number of international mixed media artists to catalogue the contemporary field of mixed media arts as well as describe, from time to time, some of our [...]
Among my fondest memories from my time running the Center for Collaborative Art and Visual Education in Washington, DC are my encounters with founding Washington Color School artist Sam Gilliam. During the time I knew him, living as my wife and I were at the time, out of a studio apartment in his studio building [...]
There’s something kinda cool going on in the photosharing site Flickr with “artist trading cards.” I’m not sure what it is (artists making playing card-sized works to swap?), how it started (a couple of years, max?) or how widespread it is as an activity (alot are mixed media) … But from what I can tell [...]
My friend Darlene Charneco, who has been a constant source of inspiration, recently introduced me to the work of her father, the painter Nestor Charneco. I can’t wait to see these lush, saturated works in person some day. The convergence of utopian visions, cultural heritage, and flesh as subject result in some very beguiling works [...]
There’s a sweet show up at Capitol Grounds in Montpelier, our local coffee joint. The show features 12 framed works by watercolor artists Linda Maney. Her work doesn’t stop with watercolor: these abstract compositions make use of bright color on paper that has bee torn, recomposed, and then complimented with kraypon strokes and acrylic. A [...]
Footnote: Today’s “Gallery” section of the Times-Argus covers a new show of mixed media works by Vermont artist Jane Horner. Here’s the blurb from the Green Mountain College website (I haven’t been able to make it over the mountains yet!): Green Mountain College invites the public to an opening reception for an exhibit by Vermont [...]
I really enjoyed a recent visit to the member-owned Arts Sutton gallery in Sutton, Quebec where I encountered Mary Bogdan’s “Reparenting my inner child” series. While I was much less captivated in what I saw of collage on the walls than the stirring images of Mary’s constructions that I encountered in her book, “Mary Bogdan” [...]
During a family outing to the lovely town of Sutton in southern Quebec, we happened into the Galerie Farfelu de Sutton. The four of us – Cathleen, Isabel, Wyva and I – trooped into the compact space and browsed around. In a small nook behind the cashier I discovered a “shrine” to the artists Brigite [...]
There’s a wonderful little online exhibition of works by the mixed media artist Darlene Charneco over on Flickr. The ravishing pix are from her recent show in Chelsea’s Morgan Lehman Gallery, NYC. Here’s a snip from Darlene’s Flickrspace: Through the images in Gameland, Darlene Charneco continues to explore the meeting points of real life and [...]
Ever wondered what secrets the person next to you carries with them? Do you have a secret you’ve never been able to tell. Anyone? If so, the PostSecret project is for you. Sometimes whimsical, sometimes outrageous, often predictable, and always delightful. The PostSecret project was conceived by small business owner and blogger Frank Warren as [...]
I am really thrilled to open this blogspace with the news that a local (Cabot, Vermont) artist who has been working for half a century from her home here, South of the Northeast Kingdom, has finally got her work online. The artist is Wilma Lovely, a beautiful human being who has more salt in her [...]