Fish Blimps

At last, recreational travel to delight and amaze your friends. And you. Winter fish blimp flying is not for everyone, however, consider this: It only costs 19.95 R.T. and comes with warm cloaks and on Mondays you get two for the price of one. You've probably seen the offer on your local t.v. channel. For the complete tale, check out timbuctooties.com. Larger pictures, too. This is yet one more Mixed Media Collage on two inch cradled Ampersand board using ink transfer papers, found book images, all over-painted with acrylics.

Undersea Card Parlor

When you take your next trip into the briny deep, make sure you go as a tourist. What looks to be a rather benign ladies card party, in reality, is three deep sea jailers watching over their charges who must learn new card tricks every minute of every day of every year forever. Which is what happens to any of you who are addicted to gambling--lost to the ladies of the deep in card games that go on and on and on and on and---
A 12x12 inch Mixed Media Collage on cradled Ampersand board using found book images, stained tissue and rice papers, over-painted with acrylics. This piece was displayed for a very short time in my Bainbridge gallery when someone who loves to play card games as much as I do, snapped it up.

The Old Samurai

Collage/Mixed Media 33 1/2 x 42 inches matted and framed

The re-known Old Samurai lived a long life but wanted more. He struck a deal with a Djinn to live forever. But alas, the deal fell through and to find out what really happened you can go to timbuctooties.com and click on The Old Samurai and read the whole shebang. One of these days the book/CD I'm putting together of all the collages with their stories will be available for your listening-looking pleasure. At least I hope it will be. Meanwhile, if you are around the lovely area of Bainbridge Island, Washington, you can drop by the BAC gallery and check out a dozen collages with their accompanying stories.  The exhibit is up for the month of July, 2011.  It has been an exhausting ten months preparing for this show and now the sun has come out on the Olympic Peninsula and life is sweet. Think I will relax, ignore the glue pot and scissors and read a good mystery.

The Court of the Radish Queen

                                                   Click on image to enlarge

The Court of the Radish Queen is 33 1/2 x 42 inches, matted and framed.  Like my other pieces, this is a mixed media narrative collage. The Radish Queen is mad for radishes and her court serves them up in wondrous dishes. Eventually, she goes into the radish powder business and if you would like to read her entire story it is on my website, timbuctooties.com. She was scheduled for exhibit at the Gallery at Bainbridge Arts and Crafts on Bainbridge Island, Washington, in July, 2011 but another radish lover purchased her in advance and she will be replaced by the Cauliflower King. Stay on the lookout for him. If you are around Winslow on Bainbridge Island in July, pop by The Gallery for a visit and he will be there along with a half dozen other friends-in-collage.

As for details: The dozens of leaves are a combo of hand painted, ink transfer, and found leaf patterns, each carefully cut and applied to the collage with Liquitex...a long process. The radishes are part of a second printing of a monotype which was a commission created for a large agricultural company in Salinas, California. That less than perfect second printing allowed me to salvage the radishes which were cut apart, reassembled, glued into position and then over painted with the rest of the collage in place. This particular piece took the better part of two months to complete.

Air Mail

Click on image to enlarge

Air Mail is a 21 x 28 1/2 inch, narrative collage/mixed media piece that tells the story of the world's first post-mistress, Nora Gami. She trains birds to deliver mail. To read her whole story, check it out on my web site, timbuctooties.com where you may also peruse some of the close-up details of the work. The next stop for Nora will be my up-coming exhibit at the BAC Gallery on Bainbridge Island in July, 2011. If you are around Winslow and Bainbridge Island in July, pop by for a visit. 

Not posting work or notes for weeks--until now: Work has been just short of overwhelming for the past couple of months with a host of minor family crises and age-74 "back" issues to deal with. But I still have an abundance of energy and pour a big batch of it into my work, trying to keep life in balance on a daily basis and myself standing upright. I sometimes wonder how any artist without a supporting partner and loving family and friends, manages. I know a few friend-artists who just manage to scrape by and do it with grace, humor and amazing creativity.  But you can ask my spouse if I kavetch, grump and show the same grace or humor under pressure. He'd say, "Yes on the grumping and often no on grace." But as a life long artist, I could not survive by any other route. No, not the grumping. But the daily making of art, which has sustained me during the bleakest years and bought great joy during the best. If we love doing what we do, then we keep at it no matter what. No matter whether it sells or not. No matter what the critics say (and that changes like the wind). Making art simply sustains us and we simply must keep at it. And so we do. And so I do. 

Ancestor Tree

Click to Enlarge

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

Click on painting to enlarge

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