December 9, 2009

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.  Lou and I spent the day with daughter Monica in Evansville IN.  She did the cooking and had everything done and ready by the time we arrived at 2.  She gets up so early because of work that she wakes early automatically all the time.  She figured she might as well get the dinner started.  Nice thing about it was it meant that we could all sit back and visit without having to worry over something in the kitchen.  Sunday we celebrated all over again with Michael, Lisa, Helen and Caroline here.  This time I did the cooking, and did the same thing Monica had done, starting early.  If it works do it!!!  Being both a working and school night, that worked perfectly.

Lou and I hosted the vocal workshop of our music instructor Roberta Singer.  We’ve done this many times over the years and it is a lot of fun.  Eight of us performed.  Having read the book “Hidden in Plain view” I was very interested in the Underground Railroad to freedom by blacks during the mid 1800s, and the part quilt patterns played as a form of communication.  I became really excited about the music, the spirituals, which also contributed to the “code” of conduct.  I must have read 6 more books on the subject and ended up writing a research paper.  Why, I asked myself, was I doing this, I wasn’t in school, but I just couldn’t stop.  Actually, one book I want to read yet is the “Confessions of Nat Turner”.  If you’re wondering what I did with this paper (which I doubt you are) I did read parts of it at the workshop as introduction to the music I sang:  “Follow theDrinking Gourd”, “Steal Away” and “My Lord What a Morning”, the latter being a bit more contemporary….and all being much different that the usual French or Italian numbers of the past.

On the subject of books, the next wonderful read was “If Today Be Sweet” by Thrity Umrigar.  I highly recommend it, and look forward to reading other books she has written.  I liked what the Library Journal review said:  “What might have been just another story about widowhood is, in Umrigar’s hands, a canvas on which love, death, family, pain, and personal transformation are subtly painted.”

Sunday was the One of a Kind Show at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago.  I felt it was a high quality show.  It was very well attended…not just people….but people with bags of goods!  I enjoyed seeing a number of the artists who had been in the Highland Park Festival of Fine Craft or other shows when I worked at The Art Center and was responsible for the year round necessities of that show:  Christine Bartling, gold jeweler, Douglas Sigwarth, glass artist, Dinah Morrison, weaver, Mary and Spencer Watson, jewelry and rock sculpture and Mary O’Shaughnessy, lamps.  These were just those with whom I had a chance to chat.

The Collage class at Evanston Art Center has been going each of the fall and winter sessions.  Tomorrow is the last day of this session.  The next six week session will start February 4, still Thursday afyternoons from 1-3:30 pm.

Holiday cards this year were collaged.  I chose to use the “patterned paper” (note under categories) as background and for the bells.  One thing I was pleased about was the richness of the color by layering various colors.  Rather than just spooning two or more colors on the paper and pulling them down the paper with a squeegee, I worked several layers.  Sometimes one or two colors were pulled over underlying dry colors…often the contrasting color.  No additional patterns were added.

Since I’m not likely to get back to this blog until after the holidays, a Very Merry Christmas to you all and our wishes for a Happy, Healthy New Year.

September 23, 2009

What a great class Thursday the 17^th.  We are not a big class but a dynamic one.  We spent the afternoon making the painted patterned paper, the crinkled paper and the rubbings which are all on the blog under techniques.  One thing had given me trouble where the rubbings were concerned.  As you know they are printed on tracing paper, so the water soluble ink would smudge when wet with the glue.  To avoid this smudging you could glue the substrate, lay the inked imaged face down on the glue and gently rub to assure it had adhered all over.  However sometimes you want the image face up because it will be darker.  This means the image has to be sealed first.  I experimented with several spray sealers:  Americana Acrylic Sealer/Finisher, matte, Design Master Super Surface Sealer, satin.  The Krylon Matte Finish I tried, or any Spray fixative is not a sealer, and will not work for this purpose.  

 Even though the Americana said it was matte, the end product had a more satin finish.  I confess to not knowing the chemistry, other than to say you definitely must use them only in a well ventilated area.  I lay all my papers out in the garage with the door open so there is plenty of air but no wind

 Yesterday Lou and I went to the Cy Twombly show in the new modern wing of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Although Twombly is not a collage artist, he has used collage in some of his large paintings.  This might be of interest to you artists who want to combine painting and collage.

 An artist who does exquisitely crafted collage work with fabric as well as paper is Laura Breitman.  I saw her work at the 25^th A.C.E. show in August in Evanston.  The work I saw and loved was representational unlike Twombly’s very abstract works.

On the subject of books, I just finished “Hidden In Plain View” by Jacqueline Tobin and Raymond Dobard, Ph.D.  It’s about “The Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad.”  An excellent read whether you are a quilter or not, just for the history and the role of quilting as a means of communication among the slaves attempting to escape to freedom.

For my friends, Jan, Ruthe, Sue, Anita and Kathy, there is one small section about the blue bottle tree…like the one we saw at the Master Garden in Sturgeon Bay.  The ends of branches of a dead tree are put into blue bottles, which when the bottles catch the light, attract the “trablin’” spirits, those that are disquieted and roaming around (good spirits are heaven bound).  Once in the bottle the trablin’” spirit is rendered harmless to the living.    Margaret Washington Creel explains this African belief in her book “A Peculiar People”  about the Gullahs of the Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia.  So save your blue bottles!!

August 28, 2009

Here are selected pictures from the books I made for my grandchildren.  I made 5 books, each taking roughly 80 hours each.  They were what I called “pocket books” because each had a quantity of pockets made out of the pages of the books meant to hold money or other stuff.  The first 5 are from Louis’ book.  Louis is Alec and Brenda’’s oldest child and very interested in architecture and fishing.  Here are five of the pictures selected from his book.

Louis, Anna and Jilian.  Photo transfer to clear contact paper, attached with rivets.

Louis viewed through several pages of windows.

The full picture of Louis behind the windows.  Photo transfer, attached with rivets.

Parts of a fish identified opposite a page of vertical pockets with a fish inserted in one pocket.

A fish pop up.

Anna’s was the first book I did, although I ended up working on all of them at once.  Anna is the middle child in Alec and ‘Brenda’s family.  All the books contained family pictures, poetry, pop ups, pocket for money and small pockets at the end of the book with instructions on how to do each of the proceedures used,  Here are 4 pages selected from her book.

First page of Anna’s book.  Includes charpac transfer on the left.

Pocket made by folding down page from the corner decorated with flowers.  Poetry on left page.

A simple spiral pop up in Anna’s book.

Anna’s name spelled out one letter to a page, each letter painted using the alcohol reduction method.

Jillian is the youngest of the 5 grandchildren who got these books, reflected in the poetry chosen for her book.  She is Alec and Brends’s youngest daughter.  Here are 5 pages from her book.

Laser print on the left Block print ink stencil on tracing paper on the right

Pocket folded from top and bottom and closed with ribbon.

Pocket folded from top and bottom and tied shut with ribbon.

Poetry on left.  Poetry behind window on right

Four horizontal pockets on the right.

Photo transfers to clear contact paper, attached with rivets.

Poloroid transfers on left.  Poetry behind doors on right.

Poetry “A Family Is” on the left.  Windows open onto a picture of the family on the right.

Caroline is the next from the youngest grandchild and Michael’s youngest daughter.  Here are 5 pages from her book.

Photo manipulated so Caroline is in front of Helen in Caroline’s book.  Helen is in front in her book.  (A detail I doubt anyone noticed.)  Picture is photo copied and transfered to clear contack paper and attached with rivets.

Three horizontal pockets on the right.

A limerick about the tiger opposite a top folded pocket on the right.

Doors in Caroline’s book.

Accordian pleated pop up with hydrangias in Caroline’s book.

Helen is Michael’s oldest daughter, and very interested in music, playing the guitar and writing her own music.  Here are 4 pages from her book.

Dragons.

Jabberwocky.

Windows, both left and right behind which is Helen white water rafteing.

Vertical pockets with tarot cards inserted.

April, 2009

Hello to any who might still check in on me.  It’s been months since my last thoughts were published!  So sorry.  Since my last post I’ve finished teaching one session of collage at Evanston Art Center, and am into the 5th class of the second session.  Had a fun and interesting class on Saturday morning teaching image transfer techniques.  Time being a factor we accomplished only 5 techniques:  soft gel (or acrylic polymer liquid), clear caulking on paper or a non-porous surface, acetone and chartpac blender (xylene), and clear contact paper transfers.  We set up for the first 2 and let them dry while doing the last three.  My favorites are the clear contract paper for images to be used in an altered book or for cards, and the soft gel or liquid acrylic polymer for those 2 uses and for collages.  With a black and white photocopy the chartpac blender made the blackest and sharpest transfer and the acetone took a little longer and the result was a softer look.

Ellen was over one Saturday to work on developing ’skins’ for digital transfers.  We weren’t particularly successful in fact, but Ellen was taken by a couple of my pieces in the studio, called Avram at Avram Eisen Gallery and that resulted in the two of us driving down to the gallery on Sunday to take these pieces to him for his ‘Annual Flower Show’ and picking up one of Ellen’s purchases.  The show opens Friday May 1 with a brunch for the artists on the 3rd.    How many people do you know who can get lost with the ‘help’ of a map and a GPS unit??  I think Ellen’s map was OLD…it didn’t show Damen connecting with Foster which it does!! and the GPS kept telling us to turn left before we got to Damen, which we did eventually (just to keep it quiet).  We finally arrived in the rain and found parking right in front of the gallery.

Then in June I’ll hang a show of collages and paintings of mine at the 800 (or is it 900??) Elgin building in Evanston.  No opening for that one, but a nice space to exhibit (if I can find the address  of course!!)

At last here are the books.

Jillian’s book

Helen’s book

Jillian’s book

Caroline’s book

Louis’ book

Anna’s book

January 30, 2008

I’ve been trying to figure out how to get my pictures from Kodak Easyshare to my blog.  When (and If) I figure it out I want to share pix of the 5 altered books done for my grandkids.  In the meantime hi to all you friends.  I hope you are keeping warm.  Don’t know about you, but I’m really tired of ‘white’.

Right now I’m working on papers for collage and getting ready to teach the collage class at Evanston Art Center next week. 

If any of you get the chance, go see/hear the opera Tristan Und Isolde….at the Lyric it was wonderful with Deborah Voigt as Isolde.  It’s a  loooong opera, but it was a special treat with sets and costumes designed by David Hockney. Simple designs, beautiful color, and fantastic lighting.  A feast for eyes and ears!!

December 1, 2008

Hi to all my friends.  I’ve really been here all along….just never enough time to ‘talk’.  Hope one and all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.  Lou and I spent the day with Monica in Evansville, with Michael and the girls and Lou’s brother Rick.  Monica has a very tiny bungalow….but we had a great and cozy time.  For the last 2 months I’ve been working on ‘pocket books’, five of them, for my grandkids.  Don’t care much for just handing money out as gifts, but kids have their own ideas about what they want, and like to do the shopping, so I always figure a way to ‘present’ the dollars.  My goal was to complete them by December 1.  Well, I’ve almost done it….just 2 pages more in one of them and then some attention to the covers to complete them.  Picked up a couple of additional techniques in the process, pop ups, contact paper transfers, alcohol reduction and marbling (kids style).  The latter will be fun for the collage class I’ll be teaching in February at Evanston Art Center.

October 22,2008

Well now I will try again to post a note.  I lost my server in the middle of my first attempt. 

If an altered book can be called finished, then this one is done except for the cover.  I had cut a window in the cover before covering it with a crumpled paper pattern designed paper.  The opening was backed with one of the book pages and the space was painted with polymer medium to seal it.  Now the one thing left to do is imbed the two artifacts from the trip into this window in a little ‘lake’ of epoxy.  I think my favorite part of the book is the three page section with four pockets sewn onto each page and tucked into each pocket is a tiny instruction sheet for each of the techniques used in the book.  I’ve added a few things to my techniques list on the blog if you care to check. 

Last week I was the invited artist for an altered book class at Evanston Art Center.  The class is team taught by Mara, Deb, and Ina.  It was great sharing my work, and at the same time getting new ideas working with this team and the students.  You never stop learning.

Today I’m back from a short trip to Michigan to visit my 96 year old Dad and my sister.  He doesn’t speak much because he doesn’t hear much, but he still knows us and has a beautiful smile and a twinkle in his eye.

October 6, 2008

It was a sad with the Cubbies going out in 3…….but happiness reigns with the Bears.  My altered book continues, but today I took time to write out “about me” which you can read by clicking on that page.

October 1, 2008

Wow.  It’s the first day of my 69^th year.,…and I was just getting used to 68!  Yay Cubs and yay Sox.  I’m so looking forward to tonight’s game, Cubs against Dodgers.

 

At the health club in conversation with Liz, she suggested that that $700 billion bailout should be given to the tax payer to spend instead of to the failing corporations.  After thinking about that for awhile I suggested if money was to be given out it should be in vouchers not dollars.  The voucher could only be used to cover current debt up to the amount it was decided each taxpayer should get.  The real problem was credit.  For many the money is already spent running up huge credit debt that they simply can’t pay back.  Paying debts would open up lines of credit which are currently tight if not impossible to get.  Lou’s comment was “that’s why Liz is a great personal trainer and I am an artist and Lou is the economist.  (Once a banker always a banker)  Personally I don’t think Liz and my “solution” would work either, but I still think we should run for office.  (and I’d rather my economics professor cousin didn’t read this).

 

Back to altered books.  Of the remaining pages in the book, each 2 were glued together so that the remaining pages were actually 2 pages glued together and thus thicker.  I used pictures and music for “Sloop John B”, made double doors which open to a print of Hokusai’s “Great Wave”, and made a thicker page of 4 shallow boxes to hold samples of knots. (see techniques) My next plan is to make another, deeper, shelf for artifacts picked up during our walks on the beach.  And then close out the book with a page of pockets filled with instructions for the techniques used in the book and an index.  You can go to “techniques” for more detail of my methods, and if I ever learn how Ruthe got the current pictures into my blog, I’ll attempt to include some of the finished book.