The Year of Big Battles & The Transient and the Permanent
gluebook collage in old school reader
Category: Altered Photos
Immunity Against Apathy
If art does nothing else, it protects us from apathy.
Gluebook Volume 9
I finished this gluebook yesterday. It’s another remixed portrait book, this time with (mostly) fashion models. The images came from various fashion and teen magazines (Vogue, Seventeen, W, etc.). The longer I worked on it, the more I thought about how we all more alike than different.
And a quick and sloppy flip through video.
Doodle
The lines in this are a little rougher around the edges than I like, but that’s pretty much unavoidable given the nature of the technique. I used a baby wipe to dampen the photo, then scraped away the emulsion. The photo has to be repeatedly re-wet, because it dries out quickly, and when it’s dry, it’s impossible to remove the emulsion without scuffing the paper, too.
The photo itself is of a painting at the art museum where I used to work. I don’t remember the artist or the title.
Discard
collage (anatomical illustration, label, old map key, graph paper, and altered Polaroid) on banana paper
5 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches
The Tortoise
collage (magazine clippings, anatomical illustration, tape transfer, and altered Polaroid) and found art on Arches cover paper
7 1/2 x 11 inches
Altered Photo
Window
35mm photograph altered with stylus
3 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches
Cycladic Head
Cycladic Head
35mm photograph altered with bleach and stylus
3 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches
Altered Photos
The photo was bleached, rinsed, and dried, then rewet with a baby wipe and incised with a stylus. My doodle compulsion apparently knows no bounds.
This photo was sanded in parts with steel wool, then incised with a stylus, then colored with Neocolors II and RoseArt ColorSharp metallic markers.
And now I really have to finish getting my shit together. I spent the day doing the headless chicken dance (car to shop for oil change and tire/brake check, dog to vet for rabies vax[1], much doing of laundry, and a Target run for road trip essentials). I have a feeling I’m not going to get to vacuuming before I go, but I have to do the dishes and clean the bathroom.
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[1] Harriet never fails to amaze me. She is such a typical Boxer–bratty and bossy and obnoxious at home, but a perfect charmer when she has her visiting manners on. At the vet today, there was a little brindle Staffy Bull (oh. mah. gawd. was he cuuuuute!) who would not sit still. His owner told him several times to sit down and behave like “that other dog.” Haw! Harriet was lying quietly at my feet, like a good girl.
She also fawned all over the vet techs and the vet, who is a grumpy old man. Harriet does not like strange men, so I don’t know what the hell got into her. The most surprising part, though, was that she actually ate the two (two!) cookies that one of the techs gave her. She never eats food from strangers. She always takes it then spits it out.
I think my dog may have been abducted by aliens. I shall immediately commence the search for pods.
The Terrible Hours: Uncertain Orbits
The Terrible Hours: Uncertain Orbits
collage (child’s dress pattern, altered Polaroid, magazine and dictionary illustrations, and anatomical illustration)
9 1/4 x 11 3/4 inches
I found the diagram of the solar system in an old dictionary. Ironically, it was published before Pluto was made the ninth planet.
I’ve been struggling with this one off and on all day. Aside from having a headache, I was preoccupied with having been contacted by two of Esther’s nieces. I’m still mentally processing information, and I won’t know how things are going to proceed until they’ve had a chance to talk to the rest of the family. Obviously, I’ll return the letters to them, but I’m hoping that they will let me digitize and transcribe the remaining ones first. And, of course, I’d like to keep the letters online, where they will be accessible to everyone.
The internet, it doth amaze!
red paper boat 