There’s a great new effort underway to document the everyday fabricators, makers, crafters, and artists at the heart of today’s DIY movement. Its called Makeshift Magazine: A Journal of Hidden Creativity and their first issue is out. If you support their launch by contributing to their Kickstarter campaign, you’ll get a copy! While the magazine [...]

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 [...]

Since the early ’90s I’ve occasionally experimented with multitrack recording and arranging. Somewhere around 1998 I put this piece together from clips from the early George Lucas film, “THX1138″ using Cakewalk, a bunch of analog inputs, a Macbook, and Berkeley software. Still holds up – barely! Click here to take a listen.

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. [...]

NetSquared’s N2 Think Tank asks, “What was the best example or lesson learned about leveraging social media from the political campaigns this year? We saw candidates speaking to citizens through various mechanisms, but we also know that candidates have a lot more money than most of our nonprofit organizations (even if the tools are free, [...]

In memoriam Perhaps more later…

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Had a just lovely workshop with 32 AmeriCorps/VISTA members (these are young people typically just out of university who are spending a year volunteering in a community. Many in this group are working on environmental education and with at-risk populations, which is to say young people who are disproportionately likely to drop out of school, [...]

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 [...]

Poster I whipped out (I love Pages) for an upcoming mural project – February 11-13 – the largest one yet that I’ve been a part of – that will engage all students and staff in an exploration of the question, “What is my place?” The aim is to encourage students to think about where they [...]

I’ve been putting alot of thought into ways to communicate the possibilities for creating Peace Tiles – outside of the workshop environment. I’ve noticed that one of the challenges – both in communicating the essence of “collage” as well as the possibilities for creativity within that 8-inch square “sandbox” I like to call a Peace [...]

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 [...]

MixedMedia is all about appropriation – the process of selecting, manipulating, integrating “found” works into new arrangement, compositions. So when I came across the Walker Art Center + Soap Factory = Festival of Appropriation, I was intrigued! On Thursday November 29, Walker Art Center will host a film collage presentation and Circuit Bending Workshop with [...]

I’m writing from the road in DC, so I’m going to be lame and just post this press release my guru-friend Richard Dana passed along while we gnoshed on pomme fritz at the Bistro du Coin in Washington, DC last night. Short is, he’s got a piece in a group show called “Presence” at (get [...]

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. [...]

How gorgeous of everyone to come on up (and over) to the Green Mountain State for the first ever Peace Tiles “happening!” We hailed from Morocco, Canada, the Land of L.A., Oregon, Germany, the midwest and Longisland…! Just the best mixing up of people ever. The workshop opened Thursday evening with some great local food [...]

A draft agenda for MixedMedia’s 2007 Peace Tiles workshop is available to download. Click here.

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.

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Thanks so much, Lars, for that beautiful welcome, I really appreciate it. I’m thrilled to be joining this quickly growing, enthusiastic group of mixed media art aficionados. I wanted to write a bit about my process in creating the 13 pieces, called “Madonna & Child OR Re-parenting My Inner Child”, series #3, which were meant [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]