Collages

Here is the collage that I made for our Ray Johnson inspired project. I used acrylic paint, newspaper, magazine clippings, potato sack etc. The magazine clippings are from a 70's magazine. I noticed that the magazine featured quite a few advertisements for woman's beauty products, particularly hair die and stockings. I included the potato sack pieces to mirror the fishnet stockings, however it is not entirely visible in the scan. I was thinking of adding some text on the right, I feel like it needs something but I'm not sure. Comments would be appreciated.





These are some other paintings that I have done which have some collage elements. I'm not sure if they would be considered "collages" because they consist primarily of paint but do include some pictures and other materials. Most of these were don in high school for my AP art class. I haven't really been able to take many art classes at VCU as a psychology major which has been really disappointing. It actually makes me sad to go in the art building and know that I can't take art classes...

(pictures to be added)

Mail Art

In reading the section of The Accidental Masterpiece about the artist Ray Johnson, I was interested to discover that he was particularly active in mail art. Mail art can be described as art in which the act of mailing becomes a medium. Artists typically mail items such as post cards, trading cards, hand made stamps etc. which are often collaboratively altered. It has been said that mail art began as a way to pull away from the classical art world and gallery setting. It has been seen as a way that anyone can get involved in art.

I was particularly interested to learn about Ray Johnson's involvement in mail art because I have participated in a couple of different forms of mail art myself. In high school I joined an online group in which members exchange artist trading cards. These tiny cards are the same dimensions as traditional playing cards. Each month the group would have a different theme for the cards. I would make a certain number of cards to send out and would receive the same number in return. As a student I thought of this as a great free way to collect some art. It is really fun to see different people's interpretations of the same theme. Themes were often very broad such as a particular color so that they would not be overly limiting. Here are a few artist trading cards that I made using mixed media and printing techniques.

Another form of mail art that I engaged in was the 1000 Journals Project. This project started with 1000 journals being sent to different people who had signed up online. They were passed around from person to person until they were full and they were then sent back to the anonymous founder of the project to be scanned and uploaded online. Sometimes the journals were worked on by one person at a time but some were also placed in community locations such as coffee shops to be worked on collaboratively. The project has grown to include far more than 1000 journals. Today, anyone can start their own journal to be passed around and upload their own images. I started a journal for a class that I took, Art and Community. Most of the people in my class added to it but I haven't been brave enough to mail it out to people I don't know yet! If anyone would like to add to it please let me know in class or in a comment.

Touch

I came across a video piece online called "Touch," by Janine Antoni in which the artist appears to gracefully walk along a horizon where the water and sky meet. Antoni spent months learning to walk on a tightrope and eventually had one set up over the horizon across from the house where she grew up in the Bahamas. With the camera perfectly angered, Antoni appears to walk across the horizon and touch it each time the tightrope sways.


Touch Video

Interview

Lothar Meggendorfer

Lothar Meggendorfer was a German artist who is most well known for his elaborate pop up books, the first of which was published in 1862. Meggendorfer started out as a writer and illustrator for a humor magazine but eventually began creating pop up books after making one as a Christmas gift for his son. He ultimately made over 200 books which were published in German and English. Meggendorfer constructed the original books along with elaborate plans for workers to reproduce them. Workers actually hand painted most of the early books but later began using lithograph.

Wikipedia

Sketchbook

This link contains images from Meggendorfer's sketch books. It is particularly interesting to see the sketches that appear to be of characters from later produced pop up books. There is a sketch that resembles the character Kasperl which is included in BibliOdyssey.