Ancestor Tree

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A painting I had done years ago was collecting dust in my daughter's closet. We had both gone on to more interesting and challenging art images--hers for her art collection and mine to create. So, one day she returned it and suggested I might make it into one of the new collages. A friend had given me some wonderful old Chinese tissue prints. The original art had a gathering of family crows in a tree. If a family of crows could gather in an old tree, why not a gathering of ancestors using the almost transparent tissue prints. And so it came to pass that The Ancestor Tree was incorporated into a new myth encouraging the people to honor their history and ancestors.

The center of the flowers came from diamond jewelry displayed in a magazine. The bling became fruiting flowers (nicer than real diamonds in my mind), the crows remained but grew in numbers and took on spotted feathers, the tree flourished with ancient relatives, and people came to honor them and enjoy the beauty of the Ancestor Tree. The story took some twists and turns to arrive at an acceptable conclusion and if you want to read it and see the image enlarged with details you can visit my web site.

The painting was in the collection of artist's works at The gallery at Bainbridge Arts and Crafts, on Bainbridge Island, Washington and sold to a local collector. It has a lovely home. To see more of my work you can also visit their site and request more information.

Gramma's Fairy Tales

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This flight of fancy grew from the lovely borrowed Asian figure which transmogrifies into a fairy in a small world farm story (including a fifthteenth century farmer and his chickens). It tells the tale of an aging Grandma who loves to tell stories. She reads to the birds and her neighbors. As an aging grandma, myself, I know the pleasure found in making up and reading stories to my grandchildren. And then, we can all draw pictures and make our own books. What fun!

As for technique, the papers are hand painted and cut pieces--scraps from old books of flora, a snippet of a found-picture of a Japanese country house, scraps of my own ink transfer papers and of course, in the end, lots of over-painting and more layers of collage. This one can be found at  Bainbridge Arts and Crafts as are many of my other pieces. It is due to be shown in July in a small group  exhibit called, Narrative Collage. It is 28 x 33 1/2 inches framed and matted. To see the piece enlarged with details and the accompanying story, go to my web site: www.timbuctooties.com

Monkey Business

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As a mature artist of 74, I have explored, studied, taught and exhibited a variety of media, ending up today with a favorite--dredged from childhood, I suspect; paper, scissors, glue and paint. And this is a new communication media as well, this blog business, and here I am, sharing what I love to do most. My work can be found at The Gallery, Bainbridge Arts and Crafts on Bainbridge Island, Washington, or here in my studio in Port Ludlow, Washington. The piece called Monkey Business has been worked over an unfinished lithograph and is a layered mixed media/collage, 28 x 33 1/2 inches, framed and matted.

I haunt used book stores for materials, make my own ink transfer and marbleized papers, am given odds and ends from other artists which are incorporated into the finished collages. The process begins with a layout using cut pieces, eventually glued into place, then over-painted and after that more layers are often added until the muse says, "Enough, you're done."

Each collage has a story or poem, exhibited with the image. They are often slightly preposterous, emerging from my wandering mind. This particular piece, Monkey Business, arose from finding a wonderful second hand book of Japanese decorative elements, some of which were little wooden boxes. The boxes, many of them animals, became a modern collage version of the Bremen Town musicians fairy tale of old. Then cut fruits from a garden book were added to the tree, tempting the animals to climb to recover them. Old Japanese match book covers depict animal images. My imagination found them dying to escape, and so with scissors and glue they did. One escapee, the little monkey, ran off to push a baby buggy and encourage the rest of the gang into real Monkey Business.

The whole story and a larger version of the collage can be found on my web site.