January 2005 – red paper boat

Tainted Love: A Series of ATCs

January 31, 2005 Shelly

1. Baubo Takes Love by the Horns
2. Baubo and Cycladic Head Find Love in a Feather Bed
3. Baubo Cruises the Love Boat
4. Sympathetic Magic 1
5. Sympathetic Magic 2

Technical notes:
One of the art groups I play in decided to do a special Dark Valentine ATC swap. I had some ideas that revolved around Hollywood sex sirens, but they all seemed a bit flat. I was going through a box of photos I’d taken years ago for a project I haven’t really gotten to yet: Baubo’s Safari. I thought some of them would be perfect for this swap, so I pulled out a few of them and set them on my coffee table to contemplate. I figured that if I looked at them long enough, inspiration would hit. And it did.

I sanded and scratched up the surfaces. For the one 35mm photo, I was able to entirely sand away extraneous bits I didn’t want included. Polaroid film isn’t as easily manipulated, but I found that if I sanded off the binding tape around the edges, I could remove the film from the emulsion layer. I really like the way these turned out. (If you try this at home, I’d suggest wearing gloves and a face mask and dispose of the emulsion layer very carefully! It contains some pretty toxic chemicals that you don’t want to breathe or worse, have your pets chew on or eat.)

The photo layer of a Polaroid is a thin piece of plastic, so it presents a challenge when trying to adhere it to something else. I’d decided to use an old deck of Harly Davidson playing cards as my ATC base. The cards are highly plasticized, and even though I’d sanded them thoroughly, I didn’t think I could get a good bond between the card and the film. I decided to use a mechanical fastener–eyelets–instead.

Baubo:
So, who is Baubo and why did I choose her to represent tainted love? Baubo is a goddess of womanly humor and knowledge; of obscene laughter and bawdy jokes; of the belly and the vulva.

Baubo played an important part in the story of Demeter and Persephone. When Demeter–goddess of ripe grain; of fruition and harvest–lost her daughter to Hades, she wandered the earth in deep mourning. Demeter took an oath that the earth would remain barren until Persephone was returned to her. The crops died and the earth turned barren. It was as if ceaseless winter had fallen on the land.

In deep despair, Demeter travels to Eleusis, where she retires from the world. Baubo meets her there and intercedes, telling bawdy jokes and then, the unthinkable: Baubo flashes Demeter. By lifting up her skirts and showing her belly and vulva to Demeter, Baubo shocks Demeter and causes her to laugh. Demeter regains hope and decides to carry on her search for her daughter. In the meantime, she reclaims her duties in making the crops and vegetation grow. Abundance returned to the earth.

Sympathetic Magic:
These two images should be self-explanatory. They are funerary urns from the Bura People of Lake Chad, Niger. They’re shaped like huge penises (3-4′ tall) and are covered with scarification patterns.

Art, Journals

Snow

January 29, 2005 Shelly

Snow
composition book journal

It snowed again today, though it wasn’t very cold. The temperature hovered around freezing this morning then rose over the day. I can hear melted snow dripping on the metal awnings over the living room windows. Tap, tap-tap, tap, tap-tap. The dogs had a blast playing bitey-face and digging for moles. They came inside with snow on their backs, mud caked on their paws and noses, and happy smiles on their faces.

Early in the morning, the heavy, swirling snow turned the trees a ghostly grey. The low contrast between the two was beautiful, so I thought I’d try to capture it. Naturally, I took some pictures, but I decided to try a spread in my composition book journal. I painted the pages bright white. It took several coats and dried to a super high gloss finish. Nothing would stick to it, so I sanded it. Then I got out my grey, brush-tip Pitt pens and doodled a tree. It was a little too flat, so I rubbed the ink around with a Q-tip. That worked pretty well. The rough texture left by the sandpaper works nicely against the soft shading made by the Q-tip.

Because of the glossiness of the paint, I had trouble scanning the image. I ended up scanning it in grey-scale. I increased the contrast. The original is much more subtle, but I just couldn’t duplicate that subtlety on-screen.

On another technical note, I’ve been toying around with applying paint in different ways, trying to minimise the stretching and buckling that frequently happens when working with such thin, cheap paper. Despite what looks like large waves in the paper, especially on the right-hand page, the paper stayed almost completely flat. I’m quite pleased with the way it turned out. Once the journal has been shut and weighted overnight, this spread should be nice and flat. To achieve that, I applied a very thin coat of paint with a credit card, gently squeegeeing the paint across the paper. I was careful not to over-work the paper, though, which made a huge difference in how much it stretched. I also waited for it to dry completely before I put subsequent coats on, which is something I haven’t done in the past. Allowing the first coat to dry and seal the page makes a huge difference. There is almost no stretching along the spine edge, which is something I’ve been struggling with.

Now that I’ve done my arting for the day, I’m off to vegetate in front of some bad television and drink a cup of Breathe Easy tea.

Art, Collage

Gold

January 28, 2005 Shelly

Gold
collage in composition book

I’ve been preoccupied with transcribing letters, so I haven’t been concentrating on arting. Coming down with the plague hasn’t helped matters, either. It’s difficult to feel motivated when you’re tired and grumpy and you can’t breathe properly. hrmph.

I did manage to get some gluing done last night, though. This spread started with the cover of an OCLC publication. I loved the embossed black dot grid superimposed on the satellite image of the Earth. When I finished the piece, it seemed a little blah, so I decided to try to do something with the grid. At first, I thought I’d get a small paint brush and fill in the circles, but that seemed like a lot of work (I mentioned being a-motivated?). However, I found a chopstick in with my paint brushes. The bottom end was nice and flat and the perfect size, so I used it as a stamp. The larger circles were done with the cap of a glue stick.

In other news, it sucks to have an old car. When something breaks, it’s impossible to get replacement parts. About a week and a half ago, my timing belt and cam-shaft went kerplowie. The timing belt was easy to replace, but the mechanic is having having a hell of a time finding the bolt needed for the cam-shaft, plus some sort of pin that also needs replacing. He thinks he can get the bolt from Texas and he may have found the pin in Virginia, but the vendors aren’t sure. Their inventory says they have the parts, but they haven’t been able to physically put their hands on them yet. Poor little MoonPie of Delight. I really miss my silly little toy car.

Art, Journals

Glue!

January 25, 2005 Shelly

I’ve been preoccupied the past few days with transcribing old letters. I’ve made good progress on that front and am happy with the work rhythm that’s emerging. Two to three letters a day is doable, even for an a-motivated, essentially lazy person like me.

I’ve also been arting, but not anything that’s fit to upload. At least, not yet. I got a few backgrounds painted in my composition book journal. One of them is especially peachy. As the An Art a Day theme for this week is the Arts & Crafts movement, I think I’ll do a viney, Art Nouveau-ish type design on the boarder. The background itself was sponged, so the finished product is a lovely mottled beige. Yes, I said beige. No, really, it is lovely. It’s somewhat like an earlier background I did, only a bit darker.

I’ll upload a scan of the new spread as soon as I finish it.

And now for the glue. I finished my glue book last night. The final entry wasn’t anything special and I probably won’t upload it, but it’s done, done, done. Now, I need to think about the next glue book. I liked working in composition books. The size is perfect. But, I found that they bulk up very quickly, even when half the pages are removed. The spine on the one I just finished is way too tight. It’s about to split. I could remove even more pages, I suppose, but since a thin strip needs to be left along the spine edge (to keep the opposite page from falling out), that still leaves an awful lot of bulk at the spine. I think this is due in large part to the way I work. I almost always do a two-page spread with paper–sometimes multiple layers of paper–glued across the gutter. So, no matter how many pages I remove, it won’t cut down on the bulk along the spine.

I’m thinking I may take an entirely different approach to my next glue book. Instead of using a book or journal, I think I’ll use paper, chip board, or whatever ends up working best and bind my own book. If I do the spreads before I bind the book, then bind single-spread signatures with spacers between each one, that should fix the problem. It will also create a problem, though, as I will only be able to do a two-page spread on the interior of each signature. The exterior of each signature will have to be made up of two one-page pieces. If I use chip board or heavy water color paper, I could use the single pages for drawing (mmm, cray pas) and the interiors for gluing. I just got some yummy paper, so I’m going to spend the weekend playing around with options.

Art, Collage, Photography

Snow Storms and Rituals and Beautiful Boys

January 22, 2005November 15, 2015 Shelly

The wind is howling like a banshee and the snow is blowing sideways. At what point does a snow storm officially become a blizzard? The snow has lightened up a bit since I took these photos. I can actually see the ridge to the east of me. I’m glad I don’t have to be out in this. Snow and cold are great, but high winds scare the bejeezus out of me. This is definitely a day to stay inside with a good fil-um or book and drink lots of hot cocoa.

Rituals
collage in composition book

Despite my lack of motivation, I did manage to get some gluing done. The idea for the piece above came to me yesterday, at work. The person in the cubicle beside mine has a collection of vitamins and assorted medications that she takes every afternoon. Little rituals like that are comforting: shoes shed by the front door when you come home, brushing your teeth before bed, or stopping every morning for coffee before work; big rituals, as well: christenings, birthdays, weddings, honeymoons, funerals. These rituals remind us that there’s a rhythm to life and that, no matter what happens, the world will continue rotating on its axis and the sun will continue to rise and set.

Beautiful Boy
collage in composition book

I was watching bad daytime TV earlier in the week and on some talk show, probably Oprah, Celine Dion did a gawdawful cover of John Lennon’s Beautiful Boy. I’ve had the song stuck in my head since then–not a bad thing, since it was thankfully the original version. So, I thought I’d do some arting on the subject. Sometimes art is silly.

Letters to Esther

January 22, 2005 Shelly

And now for something completely different…

I started a sister blog today. It isn’t art related and the content isn’t even written by me. It’s a collection of transcribed letters written to a woman named Esther Munro. She was born in Illinois around the turn of the century. When she was a small child, her family moved to Geneva, Indiana. In the 1920s, Esther attended Indiana University, where she received a degree in elementary education.

Esther died in 1997 and her letters were sold at an estate sale. I stumbled across them a couple of years later at a flea market, where the vendor was selling them piece-meal. I thought it was criminal that he was splitting them up, so I asked him what he wanted for the whole lot. I ended up paying $20 for an orange crate crammed with hundreds of letters–her entire life’s worth of correspondence.

I haven’t even read all of the letters yet. Some of the letters are from friends, some from family. Many are from college sweethearts. They all help to paint a picture of the people around Esther. Interestingly, they don’t tell us much about Esther herself. I have an interactive art project in the planning stages that will help remedy that. Esther should have a voice, too, I think. But, for now, I’m working on transcribing these boxes and boxes and boxes of letters. I’m hoping to add a couple more each day, time permitting. I’m also trying to find related information on-line (e.g. the links to the Panama and Pacific Exposition and the PBS special on the 1918 influenza epidemic). If anyone comes across information or websites that they think would be informative, please let me know.

Art, Bookarts, Crankypantsing

Dada Book

January 20, 2005 Shelly

My poor little car is dead, dead, dead, so I’ve been a little preoccupied, a little freaked out, and generally very cranky about the whole thing. I hate worrying about transportation problems. Last night, I was suffering from extreme grumpiness and thought a book making fix would help improve my mood. There’s something about the smell of beeswax and the rhythm of folding paper and sewing bindings that I find calming.

Since I’ve been playing around with glue books, I’ve been going through stacks of magazines, ripping out images. I decided to make a Dada book out of the left-overs. I took a stack of pages I’d torn out of various lifestyle/interior design magazines and made a little (4.5″ x 5.5″) coptic bound book out of them. It’s 13 signatures of 20 pages each, so the whole book is 260 sheets (520 front/back pages). It’s *cute*.

My plan is to do quick journaling and collage in it, with the emphasis on quick. This isn’t going to be a pretty, carefully crafted altered book sort of project. Since the pages are chock-a-block with ads and fashion/home decor advice, I’m planning on the book being a commentary on those things. I think that will tie in nicely with the overall concepts of Dada–reuse of junk/trash, anti-aesthetic, anti-culture, and silly, obscure references.

I haven’t taken pictures of the book yet, but I’ll post them when I do. I’ll probably also post scans of pages as I finish them.

Art, Collage, Ladybusiness

Packing

January 18, 2005 Shelly

Packing
collage in composition book

Today’s glue book spread started with the lovely pale tealish blue color of the wedding cupcake layout. From there, I searched through my stacks of clippings, looking for similarly colored bits. The idea of a woman’s traditional place in the world–from cook and seamstress to interior decorator to maid to fashion plate and wife–became a running theme. The title comes from the historical act of a woman and her dowry being packed up as presents to be opened by her new husband. I thought of all the woman who, throughout history, have embarked on a new life not knowing what was in store for them. What thoughts must have gone through their minds as they packed to leave their parents’ homes for the last time?

Art, Photography

My "Studio"

January 17, 2005November 15, 2015 Shelly

Before and After Cleaning

I always enjoy looking at people’s work spaces. I’m in awe of many of them. They’re neat and tidy and hummense. I live in a tiny house with no room for a studio. I prefer working in front of the television, anyway, so even when I had a nice, big studio, I didn’t use it much.

The first picture I took early this morning. I’d been up late working on something, so it was a mess (everything out of place, paper scraps on the floor, and evidence of my caffeine addiction littering the area). The second picture is the clean(er) verison.

Stacks of Junk and Collage Mania

I added these pictures to show the stacks of containers and drawers under the coffee table. I also thought I’d include a picture of the top of the coffee table. It’s a butt-ugly 1970s vintage maple piece that I inherited from a college roommate. Instead of replacing it with a nicer one, I decided to decoupage the entire top and paint the body. That was about 10 years ago (lordy, does time ever fly!). The decoupage has held up pretty well. I’ve had to replace a couple of areas because I’m coaster impaired and over the years cold beverages have sweat on it. The paint job is looking a little worse for wear, but since I use it as a work bench (note the hammer underneath it), I’m in no hurry to repaint it.

Art, Collage

Meat, Eggs, Glue, and Paint

January 16, 2005 Shelly

A Nice Cut of Meat
collage in composition book

I tried a Dadaish approach with this one. The torn up black and white pieces came from magazine ads. I tore them into roughly squarish pieces, then turned them all upside down and shuffled them around. I picked pieces from the pile, applied glue, then randomly stuck them on the page (I closed my eyes to ensure the placement was actually random). I added the knife because I liked the shape of it. Then, while flipping through a copy of Martha Stewart Living, I thought a piece of raw meat would round out the ensemble nicely. ha! A few pages later, I found the finishing touch.The idea of all those chopped up bits of models juxtaposed with the knife and about-to-be carved meat strikes me as gross and amusing.

Six of One
collage in composition book

This is an entry in my composition book journal. The sun came back out for awhile, so I thought I’d try painting the page bright orange–not one of my favorite colors, so I thought it would present a challenge for me. I had veggie eggs for brunch (I totally missed eating breakfast!), so the egg theme seemed appropriate.