Dear Reader,
My artmaking has again settled into a series. This one attached
itself to the previous series of pieces, like “Karaoke,”
in which I layered art tissue over older paintings that I was
ready to let go of.
“Karaoke”
My goal is to produce at least one finished piece every month;
by the end of the year, I am satisfied to have close to a dozen
pieces. Every month dawns, and I begin to wonder where the next
quest will end.
An idea came to me last July, when I settled down to explore
what that month’s artwork would grow into. We receive a
gift subscription to The English Garden, a gorgeous magazine
filled with images from a country obsessed with flowers, trees,
and shrubbery and their being thoughtfully placed and cared
for. The articles are well written, but it is all about the
pictures. Spending time with each issue is always a sure bet
to bring down my blood pressure. We save every issue because
they are too beautiful to recycle. The stack beckoned me when
I was gathering materials to begin my July artwork.
I asked myself, “Would I be compromising
myself if I cut out and collaged images from these magazines?
Shouldn’t I paint my own flowers and trees? What could
I learn from trying out this approach? What other artists cut
up magazines?” Angst and curiosity aside, the name of Joseph
Cornell came up. He was a practitioner of assemblage art and
frequently used magazines in his shadow boxes. If Joseph Cornell
could cut up magazines, so could I!
Just like taking a trip, the fun comes from the planning. I
chose a painting, bid farewell to “Take Your Pick”
“Take Your Pick”
and collaged sections with art tissue. I was
ready to begin by leafing through each magazine with an eye
for how parts might be retooled. It felt wonderful to give another
life to spectacular images of flowers, ponds, bridges, garden
furniture, fences, tools, stone walls, trees, and shrubs! I
cut and placed, then replaced, and cut some more. There I was,
sitting amid a mosaic of scraps, joyfully experimenting. Images
of ponds with ethereal reflections turned sideways and created
a visual jolt. A weird scrap of sky became a bird’s body!
The lesson: “Look…then look again” to jar the
abstraction into something recognizable. Or not.
