Category: Collage

Altered Books, Art, Artist Books, Bookarts, Collage, Found Poems, Poetry

The Story

Shelly

I finished the poem and painting part of this months ago, but didn’t like where the collage was going, so I got stuck. It’s been sitting on my coffee table since, um, January. Oops!

The Story
collage (leaf, yearbook photo, ribbon, coin, buttons, map legend, and raffle ticket) with watersoluble crayon and found poem in altered book
9 3/8 x 11 3/4 inches

The Story
(a found poem)

The story was a riddle
pointing to a shimmering surface
to hidden depths
to inner experience.

The story
neither sought nor found
like a melody continually improvised
full of blasphemy
for many generations venerated
should not be read simply.

The story
found in the garden
between the infinite and finite
above the abyss that separates
the failed and perfection
depends upon the divine
hidden deep within
as well as outside.

Art, Collage, Paintings

In Progress

Shelly

100_5599
acrylic and collage on canvas
38 x 38 inches

This is really rough. The paint is just a quick layer to block in the main shapes. I usually block in with the complement of whatever the end color is going to be, if I can manage to plan ahead that far. It probably doesn’t matter with acrylics, but with oils, doing so makes the colors pop.

The tree is all collaged with pages from an old paperback copy of Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge. I read it in high school and can’t imagine wanting to read it again (the first time was painful enough!), so it was a good candidate for recycling.