Coming up for air

I love your last post and, despite a long list of weekend tasks that includes WORK work, I have to respond, react, and comment.
First, your studio is shaping up into an amazing space for you. The light...oh, yes. Everything is so fresh and clean and illuminated by the sun. Your manikins look so happy where you've put them, standing like ancient goddess statues waiting for you to put them into wild, mysterious, or scary photo collages. I'll get to that work in a minute. I also like your little gallery of "old" and inspiring artwork. Of course I am attracted to the bloody red you used in three of the four pieces. So dramatic. Did you see the mobile phone collage work that Ivy Newport posted in her email? Nice, huh? I wonder if we will actually meet those artists in our virtual paint & pixels course, which begins Tuesday here --> Paint and Pixels

Thanks for all the links to books and artwork you've explored lately. I looked at the collagraphy art book on Amazon and was intrigued. I think I sent you photos of some collagraphic work I made last fall. I have the best framed and hanging in a gallery "room" in our vacation rental house and one in our house temporarily. The other books you referenced told me why and how you have such knowledge about art styles and leading artists. I admire your focus and see how it helps you - and me! - think about our artwork. I haven't had the patience to stick with reading those kinds of books long enough to obtain the knowledge you have. Go get 'em!

The link to the paper vase products is interesting and I can see how clever the design is for moving a 2-D paper product into a 3-D vessel with limited prints that could easily be expanded to endless flat artwork images. Personally, I'm done with that idea. My experiment left me cold to the idea - for now. I put those pieces aside.

Altering old books. I have watched some videos on that recently and it does look like a fun thing to try. You have a nice encyclopedia set to try it on. I hope you will post your experiments on our blog.

Ok, now to your new mobile artwork with your manikins. I don't usually resonate with artwork featuring words, but I really like what you did with the images of writing in your photo collages, especially the one where the writing looks like a wall in perspective. The manikin appears to be leaning in to walk through the wall, through the words toward a deeper meaning...or am I reading too much psychology into this image? The "special" manikin peeking within the fading poisonous jack-in-the-pulpit plant (I didn't know it is poisonous!) (I've never seen this plant at this life stage!) has that combination of scary and mysterious. I love the deep, dark colors against the pale (innocent?) complexion of the manikin. What deep psychological story is told in this image?

Ok. I've got to get this day going and come back with some photos of my work so we keep this going at a faster pace now that it is cooling down (at least here in Midwestern US) and I am inside more.

Later...