Make Contemporary Collage

I am a great fan of Calvin Tomkins who writes brilliantly about contemporary art and artists.

His book LIVES of the ARTISTS includes in-depth profiles of Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Matthew Barney, Cindy Sherman, Richard Serra and others.

The book is exciting to read, filled with personal information and critical insight, and would be appealing to everyone who is interested in art and artists.

Tomkins writes: contemporary art is all about choices.

I’m a collage artist. Collage is the most contemporary art medium, accessible to everyone. Collage is all about choices.

I got a phone call from Stephen McKenzie, the manager of Adult Education in the Visual Arts at the Newark Museum (Newark, NJ). He asked me to lead a mini collage workshop this past Saturday for museum members.

I chose to say yes.

I wanted the opportunity to promote two upcoming workshops, and, as always, to promote creativity through collage.

In May I did a very successful workshop titled Possibilities with Paper at the Museum. I am scheduled to teach Possibilities with Paper 2 and 3 in August and in October.  There are so many possibilities. Collage is the perfect contemporary media.

The Newark Museum Mini Collage Workshop

I gave a lot of thought to what the Newark Museum mini workshop would include, and wanted to offer a project that would encourage looking and promote understanding visually.

Here are some of the possible mini workshop themes I considered:

Possibilities with Paper

Project: Create variations in papers for collage

Embellish surfaces

Create texture with paint and tools

Combine elements and explore design

Repurpose papers for collage

I will teach Possibilities with Paper 2 at the Newark Museum on August 7, 2011,  and will teach possibilities with Paper 3 at the Newark Museum on October 30, 2011. See more information about the 2 workshops.

Colorful Collage

Project: discover a personal color palette

Explore rich saturated colors in watercolor and pastel

Play with variations in hue, value and chroma

Select magazine images in related colors

Explore complementary colors

I will teach a Colorful Collage workshop on July 17 at the Pelham Art Center.

The Art of Romare Bearden

Project: explore collage as layered imagery

Explore variation in scale

Design with geometric and curved shapes

Play with pattern, surface and line

Last year I taught 2 workshops at the Newark Museum inspired by Romare Bearden. One was titled Caribbean Landscape. Another was titled Conjur Woman: Portrait in Collage.  Each full-day workshop is 6 hours – long enough to complete a collage.

A Question of Time

The two mini workshops would each last 90 minutes so the project had to be simple and not take too long to complete. I wanted everyone to be able to start quickly and have enough time to finish.

My top choice was Romare Bearden because this is a special year (the centennial of his birth) and many museums and galleries are honoring him with retrospective exhibitions (including the recent show at the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery on West 57 Street in New York City). The exhibition closed May 21, 2011.

See works by Romare Bearden online at the Michael Rosenfeld gallery website.

I wanted people to see and understand how Bearden constructed his collage images. But I was also concerned that it would require more time than was available.

Serendipity and the art of Jean Dubuffet

The day before the scheduled workshop, I discovered an image by Jean Dubuffet (French, 1901-1985) with a fabulous, provocative quote – it was guaranteed to stimulate and inspire. Here’s the quote:

Dubuffet:

“What I expect from any work of art is that it surprises me, that it violates my customary valuations of things and offers me other, unexpected ones. 



Art doesn’t go to sleep in the bed made for it. It would sooner run away than say its own name: what it likes is to be incognito. Its best moments are when it forgets what its own name is.

Personally, I believe very much in values of savagery. I mean: instinct, passion, mood, violence, madness.”

Jean Dubuffet

The image above is titled Sylvain. It’s 10×6 inches. It’s a collage made with insect wings.

This is how I organized the Museum mini workshop project:

Provide 12×12 inch construction paper in a deep hue

Provide a free-form profile drawing on 9×12 yellow paper

Provide magazine images of faces, eyes and mouths

Supply scissors, markers, glue, seam rollers and squeegee

Supply magazines for additional collage papers

Everyone got a color copy of the Dubuffet image and the quote.

I read the quote aloud.

I discussed how the image was constructed with insect wings – and also pointed out that there was an eye and teeth that could be on top or below the other papers.

Everyone was instructed to cut out the profile drawing and either trace or glue the drawing onto the larger sheet (and they got to choose where to place it). I did a demonstration on how to apply the glue. I suggested that they notice how Dubuffet limited the range of colors and try to select papers in a similar tonal range.

The rest was up to them. They chose how to proceed and what images, patterns and colors to include.

See samples of their work below. Notice how each one is unique.

workshop collage

workshop collage

workshop collage

workshop collage

I was attracted to Dubuffet’s quote and art and connected both back to a comment by Calvin Tomkins in LIVES OF THE ARTISTS. He described Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst – contemporary art stars – as the reigning heirs of deliberately outrageous art that feeds off the corrupting influences of capitalist glut and entertainment.

Dubuffet called his work Art Brut. He created with common media. His art was not high brow and he created deliberately outrageous art.

See Damien Hirst’s butterfly winged art (done in 2003), and read the review.

Thanks for reading. Please add your comments below.

SNOW

January 21, 2011

I live in the suburbs just outside Metro New York.  This winter it’s snowed every week. Up to 3 feet has accumulated in places. People are starting to complain.

Snow does slow down the rhythm of your day. Especially in the burbs. You need a car to get around and you have to count on the road crews to plow and salt if you need to get anywhere. There’s also the issue of your walkways, driveways and steps. Who’s doing the snow shoveling? Somebody has to shovel. If you have to commute to work and want to avoid the drive, you have to work at home. If you have to get to your job, you have to deal with delays. I work at home. I do it because I can, but I miss my studio and the routines I’ve established.

Last Thursday, a cub reporter for a local paper in a nearby town stopped me on the street. He had a professional camera in his hands. He asked if I would let him interview me – and I said yes. WHY NOT? I wondered what he wanted to ask.

He asked:  Do you like snow? SNOW?

I was so surprised by the question. Everywhere I looked the snow was piled high.

I said: I love snow. It’s beautiful most of the time. And, hey, it’s winter.  It’s supposed to snow in the winter (I can be very philosophical about the seasons). I remember lots of snow as a girl (see my comments below).

nikkal, squares in totems 3

We were due for more snow. I could smell it in the air, and we got a lot of snow the next day.

He asked: “Is it a problem for you? How do you cope with snow?”

I replied: It really isn’t a question of coping. It’s not really a problem for me. The roads get plowed so the inconvenience doesn’t last that long, and I can work at home. I don’t have the kind of job that requires me to be at a specific place. I make sure I have everything I need to do my work – the  media and tools I need.  I told him I am a collage artist and work with papers, glue and paint.

(The collage nearby was produced at the kitchen table at home last weekend.)

When I talked to the reporter, I wondered if he expected the answers I gave, and if anyone else he interviewed said they had a problem with snow. Would anyone admit they had a problem with snow?

I feel lucky I can work at home. But it does slow me down. There are distractions. There’s a different rhythm to the work that gets done. The light and the workspace are different.

Probably, everyone who isn’t a nurse, doctor, policeman or firefighter can work at home. Who else is so essential they have to be at work and can’t work at home?

The reporter took my picture. I gave him my business card and asked him to check out my website. I never got a copy of the newspaper and don’t know if my picture or the interview was in the paper.

nikkal, squares in totems 2

I rushed to my car to drive to the market to get milk and juice. My favorite milk (the one with 0% fat that tastes like whole milk) had disappeared from the shelves. The teenager at the checkout said the store was mobbed an hour earlier. He looked like he had been through an ordeal.

(The collage nearby was created during a day it snowed. The pieces remind me of blankets.)

With all the snow, and the time spent in the house, I’m catching up on a lot of email, organizing image files, and spending quality time planning a new step-by-step collage workshop. I will post results on my next blog –  it’s more how-to tips on Conjur Woman portrait collage inspired by Romare Bearden that is a follow up on an earlier blog titled Romare Bearden Conjur Woman and Collage.

Last night we got 4 more inches of snow. It was very cold and icy, but the roads were plowed and clear by mid-afternoon. I took the picture  (above) outside my front door at about 3:20 EST. We expect more snow next week.

Do you complain about the snow? Is it a hardship? Do you have to carpool? How do you get your work done if you can’t get to work? Or – is the snow something you enjoy? Does it bring back happy memories? Does it inspire you? Do you want to sit back, make yourself a soothing cup of tea and write about it?

nikkal, squares in a striped field

I have a memory of snow, and of being stranded with my family in a cabin in the Adirondack Mountains when I was a small girl. We got snowed in. We were visiting a very rustic couple (he hunted and fished and they lived an almost totally self-sufficient existence.

I don’t remember how we got outside the snow-blocked front door, but I do remember wearing snow shoes and walking on the high snow in the bright sunlight. It was magical.

The image nearby was created at the kitchen table and reminds me of a snowfield.

Thank you for your comments below.

Romare Bearden: Conjur Woman and Collage

Romare Bearden: Conjur Woman 1975

I teach a portrait collage workshop titled Conjur Woman, inspired by the artist Romare Bearden.

What is a conjur woman? She is a real woman who practices magical arts. Conjure women supposedly can heal or destroy. For Romare Bearden, Conjur Woman was about ritual, magic and memories.

Bearden spelled conjure without and “e.”  She was a woman who knew herbs and prepared love potions and gave counsel on family matters. Bearden spoke about how he remembered being frightened of her as a boy when he visited family in Charlotte, NC where he was born.

Read about Bearden’s childhood and early influences.

Many art historians consider Romare Bearden (African-American 1911-1988) one of the most important collage artists of the 20^th century. He is best known for the collages he made beginning in the 1960s, continuing with collage as his primary media until his death in 1988.

Conjur Woman (1975), seen above, is collage with magazine papers, Photostat reproductions and Color-Aid (silkscreen) papers, image size: 46×36 inches.

Conjur Woman 1971

Look at the image nearby of  Bearden’s Conjur Woman (1971), composed almost entirely with black and white papers (collage on paperboard, image size: 22×16 inches).

Notice the bold green collage papers that frame her face and is her nose. Do you see the birds?  Do you think this Conjur Woman is a healer or a destroyer?

I love this image and will make my own portrait collage, with this work as inspiration.

I have to interpret the women I’ve known, including very powerful women in my own family. I remember tea leaf readings, ESP, and clairvoyance.

All the people who attend my Conjur Woman workshops have been women of a certain age (around age 40 and up). They are urban, and suburban. Some are women of color. They are a mix of retirees, working professionals, a few artists and art teachers.  One exception was a young and successful entrepreneur from India named Anil. All the women in the workshop loved the fact that a man had joined our group! He started a collage with paint and newspaper, but his real Conjur Woman collage was in another media. Anil created a video dance sequence of a nude model cavorting across a figure drawing classroom for his iPad.

I think Bearden would have loved the image and the technology.

In The Art of Romare Bearden, Ruth Fine wrote: Bearden’s  themes were universal. He combined images of everyday African American life, his personal memories, classical literature, myth, music, religion and human ritual. I recommend this book for your collection. It’s filled with full-color  images and several important essays on the life and work of the artist. It is the museum catalog for The Art of Romare Bearden, his solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Romare Bearden, Conjur Woman (1964)

The image nearby is another Conjur Woman by Bearden, completed in 1964. It’s only 9×7 inches, and was created with snippets from newspapers and magazines such as Ebony and the Saturday Evening Post.

Bearden enlarged his small collages into Photostat black and white reproductions, which he called PROJECTIONS. The Photostat was a photographic process popular from the 1950s through the 1980s (now replaced with photocopies and digital technology).

The Photostats allowed Bearden to turn light skin into dark skin, and to reproduce clippings from Ebony, Life and Look magazines.

Bearden’s Projections were a sensation because they made his tiny collages into huge, graphically powerful black and white “prints.”

Some critics say Bearden’s work is influenced by Cubism.

Compare Bearden’s figures in his collage Prevalence of Ritual: Baptism (below) with Pablo Picasso’s Cubist painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (below). You may see the influence of Picasso on Bearden.

 

Romare Bearden: Prevalence of Ritual-Baptism (1964)

Pablo Picasso:Les Demoiselles D'Avignon (1907)

Les Demoiselles D’Avignon shocked and offended everyone for the way it was painted and its subject matter (women in a brothel). Picasso called the painting “my first exorcism painting.”

Do you see the influence of African art on Picasso?

The masklike faces in Picasso’s Demoiselles were obviously influenced by African masks and sculpture.

Romare Bearden was an avid student of art history, and understood that Picasso’s imagery was appropriated from African sculpture and masks.

Bearden filtered Cubism right back to its African roots

Bearden’s art bridged the gap between Western art and African art. He filtered Cubism right back.

TRY BEARDEN’S COLLAGE TECHNIQUE

You can make your own collage portrait of a Conjur Woman. She can be someone you know, a self-portrait, a figure in history, a song-siren, or a movie goddess. She can be fearful or enchanting or inspiring.

Look at Romare Bearden’s collages. Observe how his people are represented.

Look at how he fractured features, placed hands, distorted and juxtaposed the pieces that he put into the image.  He did that deliberately. He didn’t want to use another person’s image or face. He wanted to make the image his own.

Observe the media Bearden used.

What are the main pieces? Are they photographs? Magazine cutouts? Drawings? Solid color or patterned papers? Fabric? Painted or silkscreened papers?

What is the image about? Can you make the image personal? Contemporary?

Think about how much color Bearden used and how much is black and white.

Notice if there are animals, birds and snakes in the background.

What would you add to your collage to make it personal?

Visit the Bearden Foundation for information about current exhibitions, new publications and lectures.

See and hear Bearden talk about his life and work at WORLD News.

I hope you are inspired by the art of Romare Bearden and make a Conjur Woman portrait collage.

Thank you for reading this post. Thank you for your comments below.

Let Me Do It My Way

I teach collage to teens and adults. In July I was really worried that my workshop Mo-Jo lost its luster. Some students told me they didn’t understand the class projects; some told me they weren’t happy with their own work. People have different skill levels. I thought everyone was doing great work, but the group dynamic felt flat.

We did a different collage each week inspired by a famous modern artist. What if everyone just wanted to play with paint and papers, make their own collage, and not have to think too hard about any famous artist or his/her styles and media? Was I being too controlling?

Everyone wants choices. That’s the new paradigm.

The image at left is called “Serendipity.” It’s inspired by a print by Jean Dubuffet (French, 1901-1985).

Serendipity has movable pieces – I made it that way. The eyes, nose, mouth, hands and hat are not glued down. The face changes as pieces get moved around, and when pieces are turned over, the texture and colors are different on the reverse side. Collage (and serendipity) is all about welcome surprises. You may like the back of the piece better than the front!

An art teacher in my class at the Pelham Art Center (Pelham, NY) loved the Serendipity project. She worked in her own style – and riffed on the sample for the project.

My new mantra: Don’t try and direct people – especially young people.

Young people don’t want to hear you talk. I learned this from pre-teen girls who visited my studio recently.

The visit was organized by the STRIVE program in New Rochelle, NY. The adult leader told me to speak about what it was like to be an artist. I didn’t get too far into my talk. A girl raised her hand, pointed to my printmaking press and asked – Can I make a print? How direct. What a great interruption!

All the girls wanted hands-on, so I got out a Plexiglas® plate and let them brayer layers of purple ink onto the plate. I shared my oil pastels so they could draw multi-colored squiggles and hearts and write their names (backward) on the plate. I set the inked, embellished plate on the press bed, placed a sheet of good paper over the plate, put protective papers on top, then the press blankets, and then each girl took a turn with the star wheel and moved the image through the press (back and forth), and everyone got a mini turn at the star wheel.

I recently led a workshop for young adults at Bloomfield College in Bloomfield, NJ. (invited by Rosalind Nzinga Nichol, who teaches the class at the College). The assigned theme was narrative portrait collage. I planned to start with a short talk and then a demonstration. I changed the plan. They already knew what a narrative portrait collage should look like. We started by searching for magazine images.

The collage nearby is remarkable for the way it’s assembled. I observed the student as he looked through countless magazines to find exactly the images he wanted. We all thought it was great.

The image below is titled Girls Just Want To Have Fun. The figure is in multiple pieces and its organization is very sophisticated. Each letter is a magazine cut out, placed perfectly.

I spoke only a little at the workshop, gave quick instructions on how to tear pages out of magazines, and how to cut out images and leave a tiny border. I brought photocopies of hats, stripes and patterns in black and white and colors to share. While they were tearing and cutting up magazines, I walked around and showed samples of narrative portraits and talked about layering background papers and figure images.

I showed everyone how to apply glue up to the edges, and demonstrated how to get papers glued down clean and flat using a wood seam roller and plastic squeegee.

Let Me Do It My Way – again – Let Me Do It My Way

I like the fact that the words “Let Me Do It My Way” can mean two things. That was my intention. It can refer to me directing (it’s my way!). It can also refer to you ignoring my directions and doing it your own way.

I have a lot of information to share about collage. Now I understand I need to accommodate people when they want to push away from my ideas and explore their own ideas.

I wrote this blog for Lesson#2 at Blog Triage, an on-line workshop for artists coordinated by Alyson B. Stanfield and Cynthia Morris.

Lesson #2 was about finding your own “voice.” It asked us to develop a topic  and edit and post a blog that best represented our voice.

I know my voice – I’m conversational. I am in love with words (and images!), and love everything in layers. I actually am a member of the Society of Layerists in Multi-Media (SLMM is based in Albuquerque, NM).

A friend says I should make things simple (simple is better). Another friend says I should say everything in fewer words.

The issue in this blog is the struggle of independence vs. control. That’s why I titled is “Let Me Do It My Way. I believe there should never be a power struggle when it comes to making art.

Did you think this was an engaging topic?

Do you think people prefer (do you prefer) to learn by jumping right in and doing it – or do you think people prefer (do you prefer) direction from a teacher (or another person) who’s planned the project?

This subject is very important to me. It took me a while to figure it out. Now I know that most people prefer to jump right in.

Were you inspired by the workshop student images in this blog? They are similar to those created by adults in my Conjur Woman Portrait Collage workshops (inspired by Romare Bearden, African American, 1911-1988).

Did you check out the link to Jean Dubuffet? He is one of the most important artists of the 20^th century. His work is known as Arte Brut.

Rosalind Nzinga Nichol, professor at Bloomfield College wrote about the workshop and added a nice compliment in her blog PAPERGIRL. Thank you Rosalind. I love paper too. She is a wonderful artist and teacher.

Thank you for reading this long blog, and for adding your comments below.