A By Product of the Process

"A Calculated Risk"
22x 30"
mixed media on paper

This is the second in a series of new abstract collages where I am trying to work larger.
Another goal is to avoid using collage images of recognizable things such as people, faces, clothing, trees, etc.
Although I did include a drawing of a rock in the first piece of this series.
I just liked that drawing which was done with craypas.  The use of that media allowed or led to using more crayons in the rest of the work...something I like and haven't done in a number of years.

I realize that the geometry of the pieces tends to suggest concrete realities, but that is totally accidental.  For example, this piece seems to reference, at least for me, buildings or architecture, which is fine.  But I did not set out to make a cityscape or  a piece with houses or buildings.  That is a by product of my intuitive process.

In titling the piece I also refrained from referencing the architectural nature of the work.
The title is about my process.

You can see this work on my new website in the Mixed Media on Paper and Canvas gallery.
www.claremurrayadams.com

When in Doubt...Collage

Mixed Media Collage on Board
11 x 14"

The underlying basis of this collage is a mono print.
The large pink area reveals what can still be seen of the mono print.
The rest of it is pretty buried in the layers of paint, fabric, shellac and sanded plaster.
Working abstractly, without any reference to an object or some real subject is difficult for me.
I don't mind if the final artwork references something to me or the viewer, but I really wanted here to just work with shape and composition, color and texture, without relying on a collaged image.
I wasn't able to do this successfully in the mono print alone.
But I feel I had more success once I started collaging, using the mono print as one of the contributing papers for the collage.

The Botanist Makes a Dye Bath

"Black Walnut Dye"
14x15"
mixed media collage on canvas

One of the things that John and I have an abundance of on our farm is black walnuts.
As a child my mother and I would go to her childhood farm in Shelby Ohio and collect black walnuts.  Mom loved the texture and flavor of them in her holiday baked goods.  And she was willing to go to all of the work and mess necessary to get those precious walnut meats.  Removing the husks can stain your hands black and getting the nut out of the inner shell is time-consuming.  Around our farm in Southington, the squirrels are the only ones who go to all of this trouble.

Until this fall!

 In October I decided to use the walnuts to make a dye thanks to a visit and some inspiration from Jessica at Praxis Fiber Workshop.  I dyed both paper and fabric in the walnut dye (see my post from Sunday, Oct. 25) as well as a few strands of linen, cotton and silk threads.
It felt good to use this free resource and I loved the results.  Here is the collage that documents the experience which I think fits in perfectly with my Botanist's Journal series.  

Layered Ambiguity

"Forgotten"
11x14" mixed media on board

Impressionistic, Attic-y feel with a subtle use of mostly black and white.
Lots of history or soul to this piece in the many layers.
Materials include acrylic paint, found images, Japanese papers, parts of an old painting, fabric and plaster.
Can't get much more mixed media than that.
But maybe I will try!

Sewing Paper

"When Night Comes Before Day"
11x14"  mixed media collage

I have a love for sewing.
I have sewn most of my life, moving from making my own clothes to making quilts to sewing anything that  I can stick a threaded needle into.
Sewing a collaged surface takes more time, but it is time that I truly enjoy.
It brings a certain intimacy to the work that isn't there for me with other materials.
When I am working with hard surfaces like wood, I find that I incorporate sewing-like line quality.
And at times I have drilled holes into the wood so I could actually stitch the surface.
As with any artwork, the use of materials or techniques needs to "match the meaning" or intent of the work.
The black lace, although plastic, and the white lace, although covered with plaster, definitely called out for stitching.
The laces had been previously used for printing their designs onto other artwork, so they are the unconventional materials here while the stitching is the traditional process used to tie everything together.

What's in a Title?

"Not Enough of Anything"
9x11" mixed media collage

Is it important to title your art work?
This is an ongoing question in art schools and among artists everywhere.
As an educator I feel that titling one's work gives the viewer some idea of where you are leading them.
Although titles can be rather elusive, as I think this one is.  But it might cause one to think.

When I go to galleries and museums I see titles that are often very obvious and ones that don't help me at all in terms of knowing what the artist intended.  Perhaps, in the latter case, s/he wanted to remain rather private.
I usually give a lot of consideration to the titles of my artworks.
Sometimes a more straightforward title is what the work calls for while other times titles that carry some emotional content fit the work and my thought process throughout.
That might be the case for this work.

Influences

Seamstress' Lunch Break
6x7" on board

I seem to be unable to keep stitching or references about sewing and fiber from my artwork.
The use of the thread and pattern paper in the background with the silverware made me think of the days when women worked in factories making shirts and dresses.
 I could see the short breaks these women were allowed to take for lunch and their metal lunch pails.
I could see their white shirt waisted dresses worn with black stockings and black shoes.
Cutting the patterns.
Sewing at black Singer pedal sewing machines.
Hot rooms with little ventilation.
The fact that I was reading a book about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire that took place in 1911 I am sure influenced the use of the materials and the title.  While this piece has none of the tragic aspects of the devastating circumstances of that event, the materials used, from the vintage silverware to the pattern paper and old zipper, easily references the period and the work that women did at that time.    
It is surprising and yet somehow expected the way various aspects and influences of daily life take form in one's artwork.

Progress on "Botanical Lies"

Progress on "Botanical Lies"

Thus far, I have begun to work from right to left (?! go figure) using acrylics and colored pencil to expand upon my drawings done with pen and ink as well as stitched line drawing.  When I work in sections as I have done here I always worry about integrating the 2 parts.  Especially if some time has elapsed as it has with this piece.  While I have been doing other artwork, I haven't touched this piece for a week.
We will see what happened when I get back to it today.
Then there will be another time lapse since company arrives tomorrow.
Can't wait to see you guys!!

Simple, Yet Not Simplistic

Pages
8x8" mixed media collage

This is the last of the small collages for awhile.  Spare and thinly layered.  Simple without being simplistic.
I have started 3 other projects: an accordion fold book, a dimensional portrait (of sorts), and a sculpture using some cocoons or pods that I made with the stained tea bags.  These will be rather time consuming and depending on how I multi-task, I will post them in-progress and maybe not in order.
I am excited about all three and especially about moving from the more straightforward mixed media work into something more experimental.
The accordion fold book is the piece that is more grounded in what I usually do.
The sculptural piece is the most "out there" or experimental one.
And the portrait is somewhere in the middle of these 2 extremes (if they can even be called extremes).
Stay tuned!

Ten Little Leaves

10 Leaves
6x6"

More painting and stitching on  tea bags.
Here the artwork is done totally with tea bags collaged to a thin base paper then painted with watercolors
and hand stitched.
The tea bags accept the paint really well and the stained marks and texture from the tea is a bonus.
I cut through the tea bags in some areas to expose the white base paper.
I really struggled with those white recessed areas.   They were just too white.  In the end I used some colored pencil and shellac to tone them down.

For sale on my  Etsy site for $65.  

Back to Work

Swing
6x6"

So...finally I am back in the studio!  I still have gardening to do, but I feel like I can start to balance home and garden with the studio.  In the past, because I was teaching, summer was my studio time and the rest of the year was for teaching.  Now, I can flip-flop that and concentrate on artwork in the winter months and the garden and home in the summer.We will see how that works out.
So you have here another tea bag painting...a transfer of an original artwork onto a tea bag enhanced with water color and stitching.  I like the intimacy of these small pieces.  There is a freshness to them and an unexpected quality of play.

Thoughts About Time

Third Week of May

As we approach the third week of May, I am sharing the Farmscape piece I did in 2009 during that week.
As in my last post, this is a two-sided work showing 2 aspects of that week.
Time is often a factor for me...mainly, not having enough of it!
And I am certainly feeling that this spring.  I feel so behind in my gardening. I can't keep up with the mowing. And I try not to notice the record crop of dandelions.
But the tulips and daffodils were especially lovely this year and are almost done.
The apple and pear trees have finished their blossoms and it looks like there will be plenty of fruit.
The peonies will open this week and my lettuce, peas, and radishes are popping up.

So the notion of time can be a reference to how much time one has, how one uses that time, and how time itself
flows in a regular repetitive pattern that we come to rely upon.  As the song says,
"To everything there is a season...And a time to every purpose under heaven."
("Turn, Turn Turn" by the Byrds)

Using Stitch as a Drawing Line

Variations on a Theme no. 6
8x10"

So...after a week of teaching and working in the yard, I am back to making art.
Once spring arrives (and it is finally here!) there is so much to do.  It will be interesting to see how I balance art making with all of the yard work and gardening that I normally do.
This piece is number 6 in a series of light / white works.  I feel like I was able to get back to the really light palette that I was trying to achieve.  There are a few more pieces coming in this series.  I am enjoying this but getting eager to use more color. I think the "cleansing" of my palette worked.  I hope I can start reusing color with a new eye.
I really do love stitching on paper and fabric, and this is one of the things I was able to accomplish in this series of light works.  I like to think of stitching as a drawing line, a way to add linear elements but with thread and stitch as opposed to pen and ink.  That is part of what I did in this series.
I am finding that each piece brings a new set of challenges...
how to use mostly white materials,
how to use stitch in a way that references drawing,
how to manipulate materials, both fabric and paper,
how to be abstract and yet appeal to a broad audience of art lovers.

For sale in my Etsy shop for $110 with free shipping to the US.

Letting the Work Speak to Me

Variation on a Theme no. 5
8x10"

Working with this large, curved, white collar was a challenge.  I guess it was the fact that it is so large on this 8x10" piece of paper and that it has such an organic nature.  A lot of my work tends to be more geometric.  So it is good to work against the grain, so to speak.  There was lots of staring...me staring at the big white collar and the big white collar just staring back.  I was waiting for the work to speak to me.  Sometimes it does; sometimes I just have to guess at what the work wants.  I think in the end the big white collar did not want to be so big, so visible.  The addition of the woven belt and the stained tea bags on the left helped the composition as did the pink circles on the right.
Over all, this Variations Series is telling me I need to work with smaller collage pieces when working in this size range.
But I did not learn the lesson soon enough.  I have already started and almost completed Variation no. 6 which also has a pretty large collage element.

Mended Door, Tea Bag Painting

Mended Door
3.5 x 3.5" recessed in a 6x6" frame

I received a comment yesterday about the tea bag painting of a poppy addressing the stitching on a piece so small.
(Thanks, Heather!)
The stitching in that piece was on the original collage that I resized and then transferred to the tea bag.
In this piece you can see the size of the stitches and that they are sort of out of proportion to the rest of the painting.
The used tea bags are somewhat fragile, depending on what kind of tea bags they are, how long I let them sit before I emptied out the contents, etc.
I don't mind the small tears and holes.  I think they add a certain character that is authentic to the fact that it is a recycled material.  In this piece I added more watercolor paint, pen and ink lines for definition and some shellac.  The shellac adds more strength to the piece without affecting negatively the translucency of the tea bag.
The artwork is not mounted directly onto the inside of the box, but raised on some foam core so that it appears to float within the box.

Priced at $50.  To purchase, please visit my Etsy shop.

Creating Tension

Variations on a Theme no. 4
8x10"

Strong contrasts in white and black emphasize the contrasts in imagery and materials.  The drawing of the spine and suture-like stitches seem to create a sense of tension or disconnect with the flowery embroidery.  So the variation in this piece lies in both the use of limited color and suggestions from the imagery and stitching.

Cheating...Yes or No?

Variations on a Theme no. 3
8x10"

More light colored work, although a little bit of pink crept in, some of it from the staining on the tea bag I used and some from my watercolor brush.   I've had this doily for a long time and love it but could never find a way to use it.
Glad it became the star of this piece.  I do have a few more of them. They were all individual pieces but the raw edges tell me that they must have been part of something else at one time.
So am I cheating by using a bit of color and some black here and there for contrast?
My goal was to make white/light colored pieces without much color.
And to use the materials I have without purchasing new items.
So what do you think?  Am I a cheater?!

Large Zipper Pulls!

Variations on a Theme no. 2
8x10"

More white, this time with fabric and lace that has plaster added to it.
I love the large zipper pulls that I scored at a fabric store that was going out of business.
Returning to white and sewing materials is in my comfort zone along with the rectangular format.  I have to say that working in a square is more of a challenge for me since much of my work is vertical and rectangular. So I am enjoying having a bit more space and working with a rectangle again.

This work is 8x10" mixed media collage on paper mounted on a cradled board.
It is priced at $110 with free shipping in the US.
To purchase, please visit my Etsy shop.

Cleansing My Palette

Variations on a Theme no.1
8x10"

I have heard some artists, painters mostly, say that they often like to "cleanse their palette" by taking away all of the color and working in just black and white.  I think it might be time for me to do that in my collages.  I have long been attracted to collages with lots of white or light shades in them.  There was a show a number of years ago that I saw on line, not in person, where the theme of the show was artworks in white.

So I am going there for awhile...working with white/light fabrics, papers and ephemera.
I have gathered together a pile of materials and want to work from those with our purchasing new materials.
The challenge for me will be to grow in my collage work while working with the light palette.

This work is 8x10" mixed media collage on a board ready to hang without any framing.
It is priced at $110 with free shipping in the US.  To purchase, please visit my Etsy shop.

Surprise and Mystery

Leaf Tears         6x6" on board

The image here is pretty straightforward.  The technique is related to the layering I am interested in achieving.
The leaf that is printed on the paper with the text is collaged to the board along with a few other light colored papers.  The mark making on the right side was created using a wood burning tool...lots of fun.  The layers also contain tea bag papers, watercolor and acrylic.  I wanted to be sure to maintain or save the teardrops on the leaf so I used clear shellac on them to create a resist for the next layer of watercolor.  Some of the gold and red toned areas come from a piece of silk organza that was painted with watercolor.  The black thread is the final layer.  I am not sure if it is too contrasty or not.  I do like the tension created with the thread and the various implications that it suggests.

There is a richness that comes from creating many transparent layers that I am really drawn to.
There is  no way to directly paint the kinds of overlapping transparency that is in this piece without doing many layers.  Or at least I don't know how to do it.  There is both surprise and mystery that occurs when I allow myself to be playful and see where all of these transparent layers will lead me.

This piece is 6x6" on a board and priced at $60 with free shipping in the US.  You can find it on Etsy and convo me for shipping costs outside of the United States.