October 29, 2011 - The Future of Collage?

It is always a quest for me to find new materials to use in collages and other mixed media pieces. That in itself is not a bad thing, I enjoy looking for new stuff and then figuring out what I am going to do with it. But I also am getting into making my own collage material. I’ve been painting and doing other work on paper with the intention of cutting it up. As more and more of the ephemera and other printed material I like to use is vanishing, this might be a trend. You can’t make a collage out of an old piece of email.

March 14, 2011 – Popular Mechanics

I don’t have memories of Popular Mechanics lying around the house. My dad read the New Yorker. We were a family that, when something was seriously broken, you didn’t fix it, you called people. I suppose I always knew the magazine existed, but I never really looked at Popular Mechanics until my thirties.

It was the vintage issues from the 1950’s that I had “discovered.” I have been using bits of Popular Mechanics in artwork ever since. The ads in the magazine are great. They predate the era of late night TV advertising and are pretty funny. You too can have that he-man voice! I love the do-it-yourself projects from an era when people actually did it yourself. I own an old, homemade end table that clearly was made form a plan in a magazine like Popular Mechanics. One of those things I picked up at a garage sale. I no longer use the table; it’s stored away. I need to find a fan of this genre of home furnishings and find a new home for the piece.