More abstracted shredded landscapes

In the last few weeks, I inched my way closer to abstraction with the shredded imagery. First I used leftover pieces and added some art papers to make a 12"x6" mountain and valley scene. I was pleased with how that turned out and decided to try a desert view.

I worked with a photo I took in Arches National Park in Utah and was planning to make a 14"x11" collage. I ran out two sets of filtered imagery, shredded them, started to organize the strips and decided it just felt like too many pieces, too hard, too too much!

In mulling over my options, I concluded that less height really worked best for the shredded work, so I made a 12"x6"(the one on the left) and shortened the height of the rocks as I built the scene from the bottom up. Since I had so many leftover pieces, I made a second 12"x6" and created my own rock formation. (In both I've added some art papers in green, rust, gold, and some ledger paper with handwriting; if you click on the image you can see those details better.) When I put the new collage on the shelf with the first one, they made a nice diptych! I'm calling it "Entrada" which is Spanish for entrance or entry; it is also the name given to the Jurassic-era sandstone layer that gives the park's arches their form.

Workshop with Students

I had a lot of fun Saturday conducting a collage workshop with eight students at Knox College. I showed them some of my work from a few years ago that used only found papers and old photographs, did a demo of my technique, and then set them loose. All of the women had brought in some items they wanted to work with, and they supplemented with some of the photos and papers I'd brought along. Two seniors in the group said this was just what they needed as a break from their busy schedules; we had a fun couple of hours creating together.

One of Seven

Well... I was thrilled to get juried into the "Open Small Works Exhibition" in New York City and be one of 65 that made the cut out of 600 entries. The icing on that nice cake arrived in my email Sunday, congratulating me on receiving one of the seven recognition awards at the February 9th opening reception. (The image above is on the news page at N.A.W.A.-National Association of Women Artists | National Association of Women Artists)

3rd in a series

After seeing the first two pieces in this series, friends asked how I kept the image together after the print went through the shredder... the answer is, I didn't! I took photos as I worked on the third one to show the process I've worked out. I started with a 12x12 cradled panel for this collage. I cropped a photo to that size and ran out three sets of prints: one without filtration, one with a "dry brush" Photoshop filter, and one with a "poster edges" filter (If you click on the image to enlarge it, you can see the different look each has.) I then printed the images in two sections on my color laser printer (the white lines show how I divided the 12" wide images for printing on my 8.5"x14" paper).

I put all of the top sections through the shredder and placed those in a pile on my drawing board and then shredded the three bottom sections and put those in another pile. I printed out a small photo of the scene to help me as I sorted and tried to assemble the image out of the quarter-inch wide strips.

As I adhered strips, I purposely did not line up the images exactly and would add sections straddling strips to further abstract the image. I varied the lengths of the strips as well.

I let the piece dry overnight and, in looking at it the next morning, decided to add a few more pieces to the bottom left to add a bit more interference.

2nd movement

I continued experimenting this week with running my imagery through a shredder and piecing together a landscape on two 10x8 cradled panels. Two friends whose art opinions I trust saw this piece and really raved about it, so that made me feel good. I got it done in time Friday to photograph it and submit it (and the 8x8 one from last week) to a juried show in Colorado. (click on the image to enlarge and see the details better)

Shredded

In my musings this morning about torn paper vs cut rectangles, an idea hit me – use a paper shredder!! I ran a print of grass through the shredder and liked how it looked. So I ran some filters on a shot of Emigrant Peak with a grassy foreground, made a print. Ran some other filters, made a print. Placed those prints through the shredder, piled the pieces on my drawing board, and started picking out strips to glue down.  This is a little 8" x 8" cradled panel. I really like how it turned out, so I think I'll do a bigger one next....

This week I emailed the National Association of Women Artists to ask how big of a show my piece would be part of in NYC in February. The director said I should feel very honored as she thought the judges were very tough this year and they picked 65 pieces for the show out of 600 entries. GULP. There are five pieces of sculpture in the show and my friend Amber Jean is one of them - go Amber Jean!!
New York Debut of the Frog Bronze! | AmberJean

Going to New York City!

The 12"x12" collage above will be traveling to New York next week to be in the "Small Works" juried exhibit at the National Association of Women Artists Gallery on Fifth Avenue! The show will run February 1-22. It is a thrill to be juried into this show and a great start to 2011.
 >grin<