Inspiring Postcards

Various pieces from the 2011 Project incorporating vintage postcards, (4’x4” each)

Four years later, as I look back at the 2011 Project, I can see what significant role postcards continue to play in my artwork.  There have been many new pieces since 2011 that have used postcards.  And now, as I reach the halfway point in 2015, my new book Helen’s Postcards is now available.  Be sure to check it out.

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.  

3.14

Pi or Pie?  I prefer pie.

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.

Happy 80th Birthday Coit Tower!

Coit Tower turns 80 today.  It made the 2011 Project twice.  Though ironically I had to live in San Francisco for 20 years before I finally visited it for the first time.  

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.