Back to the Year of the Rabbit

12 years after the 2011 Project we have cycled back to the Year of the Rabbit.  In 2011 it was a mixed media piece.  In 2023 it is mail art with hand carved rubber stamps.

After 10 Years of Collecting Postcards

In 2011 I often used postcards in the individual pieces I made each day.  And then I started collecting more and more vintage postcards for future projects including the work shown in my 2012 installation Imagining Val Travel.  

Ten years later I find myself in an effort to use up what I have saved for decades — including the postcards.  Much of the material has ended up in artist books.  The latest one, Collage Dreams, incudes 20 handmade collages.   Each is 10.5” wide x 11” high and made entirely from the contents of postcard booklets dating from 1910 to 1950.

A book is now available that includes all the collages.   Some of the images are also available as prints.  

National Bird Day

Today is National Bird Day so it seemed a good time to look back at some bird-themed art from the 2011 Project.  The original story behind the piece can be found here.

Time and Art

Valley of the Wiggle — mixed media photo collage on board, 12”x9”

Five years ago, in the middle of the 2011 Project, I created this photo collage titled Beach Day.  It instantly was one of my favorites of the 365 pieces done back in 2011.  That piece was a key to my latest project, Time Travel Photos.  

The latest work for the series is of a valley that became the Lower Haight.  Where I have lived for over 25 years.  I have seen a lot of changes over time and at some point in the future may even do a series based on the changes I have witnessed in my neighborhood. 

2011 to 2014

Three years ago now, I was in the middle of the 2011 Project and making a 4”x4” piece of mixed media art on each day of the year.  By this point in 2011, I realized I was also working on a series that was akin to a sketchbook for future work.  My subsequent new work and shows in 2012 and 2013 proved that.  Now it’s time to exhibit the latest series of work called Collagescapes.  Some of the new work is shown above as well as the 2011 pieces that influenced them.

Collage + Landscape = Collagescape will be on view at San Francisco’s Glama-Rama Salon and Gallery.  The show runs from July 29 to September 28, 2014.  The opening reception is on the evening of Friday, August 1 (7pm to 10 pm).

Three Years Later

Three years ago, at this point during the 2011 Project, it became clear to me that one of things I was creating was a series that was like a sketchbook for future work and ideas. It was when I began talking about the theory that, at some point in the future, we artists would see a demise of source material four our collage work.  The electronic, world we live in is diminishing the amount of ephemera we are creating for future art projects.  For example, we generate less and less ticket stubs, postcards, colorful luggage tags, non-digital photographs, etc. 

Three years ago my response began with the piece shown above.  It’s time for artists to start making their own material for the purpose of collage.  We have a long way until we really run out, but it is good to think ahead. Since then I have been exploring the idea of making my own material.  This year I am getting ready for a new show opening in July.  It’s a series of work I call Collagescapes — where painting meets collage (see below).  Instead of cutting up finished paintings, I am painting fields of color for the various places I wish to depict.  I then cut up those colors and reconfigure them into new work. Collage + Landscape = Collagescape.  It’s come a long way since that one piece back in 2011.  

I Like Lichens

Pinnacles National Park Collagescape, 6”x6”, mixed media on board

The 2011 Project continues to inspire new work.  Three years ago I was with friends down at Pinnacles National Monument for a rainy Sunday afternoon hike.  It was a gray, drizzly fall day, but there was plenty of color, particularly from the variety of lichens.  Early on in the 2011 Project, I did a lichen piece based on that hike (see below).

The National Monument is now a National Park and I am still painting lichens.  This time incorporating them into a piece for my new Collagescape Series – this one is a fall palette.  Hopefully a wet winter will bring out a good spring bloom of wildflowers and an excuse to take another trip south. Next time will be to capture a different color palette at Pinnacles National Park.

Fall

Today is the first day of fall and it’s bright and sunny in San Francisco.   It usually doesn’t feel fall-like until about November.  But this year we started with a front moving through and a big blast of rain yesterday.  Unusually early for us, but reminding us that even Northern California can sometimes conform to the calendar.  Above are two pieces from the 2011 Project — Nor’Easter (we don’t have those in California, but the sky looked a lot like that yesterday) and Listopad one of my favorite pieces from the 2011 Project.

Inspiring Stamps

As I look back at 2012 I see that the 2011 Project continues to play itself out as a sketchbook for future work.  The stamp thing all started with this little piece back in January 2011 (shown above).  Now I’ve added a number of new and larger stamp pieces with certainly more to come in 2013.

Pink Week

Pink is admittedly not the most common color in my palette.  But with 365 pieces for the 2011 Project, there were inevitably going to be a few pink pieces.  This one titled Keep This Coupon is going up to Sacramento for Pink Week.   

This year’s Pink Week show will be at Bows & Arrows at 1815 19^th Street in Sacramento.  The show opens November 2 with an opening reception from 6-9 p.m. and runs through December 5^th, 2012.

Keep This Coupon, 4"x4", mixed media on canvas