Hiatus

No photo tonight -- I have run out of photos, though not of work to photograph! I hope to have some time this weekend to shoot another batch of work. Last year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I did a series of small 3" x 5" paper photocollages, which I keep like a deck of cards and add to from time to time. There are over 80 at this point. It is a pleasure to do them, very quick and meditative, and not large or serious enough to make me postpone starting!

I also have a few pieces of larger work that have never been photographed or even seen the light of day for a long while. I'll decide when I dust them off if they warrant posting or not. And I am starting to work in my studio, though not as much as I would like to.

Thanks for looking so far -- thanks also to people who have dropped by the studio to see some of the work up close and personal. More to come soon, I hope!

Saturn Conjunct Venus

SATURN CONJUNCT VENUS is a 29" x 29" paper photo-collage behind an old-fashioned, wood-framed window screen. When two planets are conjunct, it means that they are very near each other in the same part of the heavens from our point of view on earth, and they are said to influence each other.

Venus is, of course, the planet of love and Saturn is the planet of constraints and inexorables, like Time, Taxes, and sometimes, in the Grim Reaper role, Death. The romantic pinks of the Valentine collage give way to tones and images that are both fiercer and colder here. And whereas the other one can hang on any living room wall, this one is a more uncomfortable composition all round.

Valentine

VALENTINE is a 25" x 36" photo-collage which I am posting to close the parentheses on the February 14 holiday weekend. We had a very busy time in the Transit Art studios Saturday and Sunday, welcoming visitors from the area and also those who came to take part in the three-day Bluegrass Festival.

This piece is built around a central image of Botticelli's Birth of Venus, fractured and superimposed over a heart-shaped, mysteriously whirling Kali-esque figure. The whole collage is covered with a layer of glaze and tissue paper, to blur the hard edges and add to the mystery. There are a lot of romantic pink tones, but the Valentine itself is smoky black and gray, very "noir" in spirit as well as in color.

Open Heart

OPEN HEART is a 5" x 7" assemblage deep inside a styrofoam end cushion for a big, old-fashioned toner cartridge. I've been saving it up for Valentine's Day! but am posting it now, because we have Open Studios in the Transit Art Center this weekend and it promises to be busy.

There are windows cut in each side of this piece, and each one gives a tiny view: a tranquil scene, a pair of dice. Inside the main chamber is a Kirlian photo of a child, the Tarot card representing the Lovers, and a little mirror. And at the front is a big piece of glass that looks like ice, melting away.

The ice jam on Oil Creek broke up and moved out into the Allegheny earlier tonight, so we won't have a flood here this year after all. Deep breath, relax -- how good the melting of the ice feels!

History of the Age of Pisces

HISTORY OF THE AGE OF PISCES is a 15" x 15" collage/assemblage on a painted styrofoam base in a 4" deep custom shadowbox frame. That frame was a great extravagance -- I had a show at De Havilland Fine Art Gallery on Newbury Street in Boston, and I went all out. Since most of my work is what you may call self-framed, this is the only one that has this kind of professional presentation.

Pisces means, of course, fish and there are four fish images, one primitive, one with an East Asian feel, one Gothic-Renaissance, and one late Victorian. The Age of Pisces is supposed to have covered roughly 2,000 years and to have ended right about now. In the last image, the fish is cut in half and is spilling out the human adventurers into the air of the next age. Wheee!