Art I'm Making: New Collages (May-June 2015)

The second weekend of Art at the Source Open Studios event is approaching. I've got new art to show--new collages I've made during lulls in the stream of visitors to "Studio 48." I put that in quotes because I'm actually showing in my mother's nicely repainted garage, not in my home studio.

Art at the Source (unlike Art Trails, the October Sonoma County event) requires you to show on the west side of Highway 101. Here are a couple of my newest pieces: Untitled Collage No. 101 (Santa Rosa), shown above, and Untitled Collage No. 102 (Santa Rosa), shown below.

Click on the images for larger views. Even better, come see my work in person during the second weekend of the Art at the Source Open Studios event, June 13 & 14, 2015. I'll be showing at Studio 48, in Sebastopol. Come see my photography (abstract work, nudes, bird photography), printmaking, and, of course, collages.

For more about my collage work, visit my collage website  at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/.

Art I'm Making: Art at the Source Open Studios Event (June 6-7 and June 13-14 2015)

Art at the Source--Open Studios. Tomorrow, June 6 and Sunday June 7. Then again the following weekend June 13 and June 14. Showing photography, printmaking, and abstract monoprint collage at Studio No.48, in Sebastopol. 10:00AM to 5:00PM

Art I'm Making: New Collage

Painting a thick layer of pale acrylic color on glass using a toothed plastic brush left me with a mono-printed background texture that became the starting point for my latest collage piece--Untitled Collage No. 100 (Santa Rosa). Working on a glass plate that wasn't well washed after its last use resulted in flakes of blue getting embedded in the paint--an effect I rather liked. The bottom half of this piece is constructed from fragments of assemblages that became other pieces of art. May 28, 2015. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, found paper, collage. Image size: 13.9 x 22.2cm.

Click on the image for a larger view. For more, visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/. Or, come see my work in person during the Art at the Source open studios event, June 6 & 7 and June 13 & 14, 2015. I'll be showing at Studio 48, in Sebastopol.

Art I'm Making: A Collage in Prussian Blue (May 6, 2015)

A new collage: An arrangement of tones in Prussian blue, with a couple of sidesteps into other colors. Untitled Collage No. 99 (Santa Rosa). Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, collage. May 6, 2015. Image size 8 x 11.6cm. Sometimes I think I'm happiest in Prussian blue.

Click on the image for a larger view. For more, visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/. Or, come see my work in person during the Art at the Source open studios event, June 6 & 7 and June 13 & 14, 2015. I'll be showing at Studio 48, in Sebastopol.

Art I'm Making: New Collages (April 2015)

Two new collages since last reporting: Untitled Collage No. 97 (Santa Rosa) and Untitled Collage No. 98 (Santa Rosa), finished on the 14th and the 18th respectively. Both use some new Prussian blue papers I've made using a fairly thick layer of paint that I then raked through with a tool to expose the paper below, leaving streaks of thin, transparent color between thicker ridges. I like the luminous quality the thin paint creates. There is something that puts me in mind of stained glass in Untitled Collage No. 97 (Santa Rosa), shown at the top of the page.*

The second piece uses scraps of the Prussian blue paper at the bottom and in the main form toward the upper right. The very pale lavender background is left over from some recent paper painting. The reddish purples are scraps from last summer.

Click on the images for a larger view. For more, use the Art I'm Making tab to the right or visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ (requires Flash Player). Come see my work in person during the Art at the Source open studios event, June 6 & 7 and June 13 & 14, 2015--at Studio 48, in Sebastopol.

*[I later decided No. 97 was subpar. I destroyed it and created an entirely new piece, which is now pictured. ]

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 96 (Santa Rosa)--or the case of the purloined sandpaper

For weeks, a scrap of fine sandpaper that my son had been using for something and failed to put away, despite repeated requests, kept staring at me every time I walked by the place it rested, on the edge of a shelf, at the top of the stairs. Today, it finally got cleaned up. I cleaned it up. Though it was, technically speaking, already mine, I stole it. I used it in a collage today. I transformed it from an annoyance into a field of grey that was just the thing needed in the place I put it. I made art today. Untitled Collage No. 96 (Santa Rosa). Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, found paper (sandpaper). Image size 19.8 x 26.3cm.



Click on the images for a larger view. For more, use the Art I'm Making tab to the right or visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ (requires Flash Player). Come see my work in person during the Art at the Source open studios event, June 6 & 7 and June 13 & 14, 2015--at Studio 48, in Sebastopol.

Art I'm Making: Two New Collages (March-April 2015)

Here are my two most recent collage pieces. Both were created at the end of March. With this post I'm finally caught up. Untitled Collage No. 94 (Santa Rosa), shown at the top here, uses some new orange and lavender papers I've created along with scraps from last year made using Sennelier's "Blush Tint" and "Neutral Tint" paints. As I've said before, I think the Sennelier acrylics are especially beautiful, although I occasionally use colors made by other manufacturers.

Untitled Collage No. 95 (Santa Rosa) is diminutive. At 5.8 x 6.7cm (about 2 x 3 inches), it's the smallest collage I've made to date. It uses scraps left over from other collages and the last bits of a piece of pastel-covered paper (the rust areas) I got from another artist. I'm now working on a new collage that will use piece of a pastel drawing of my own.

Click on the images for a larger view. For more, use the Art I'm Making tab to the right or visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ (requires Flash Player). Come see my work in person during the Art at the Source open studios event, June 6 & 7 and June 13 & 14, 2015--at Studio 48, in Sebastopol.

Art I'm Making: New Collage

I finished this piece in the middle of March. It uses test strips made by local photographer Barbara Elliot, who is learning the platinum/palladium printing process. I visited her studio not long ago to talk about showing her work on The Art Wall at Shige Sushi, which I'm now curating. We'll be doing a show of her work later this year. While talking she showed me some of the tests the was doing and I noticed these scraps with penciled lines and numbers on them. She kindly gave them to me when I expressed an interest in them as collage material. This is Untitled Collage No. 93 (Santa Rosa). Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, found paper (platinum/palladium test strips with graphite). Image size: 16 x 21.7cm.

Click on the images for a larger view. For more, use the Art I'm Making tab to the right or visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ (requires Flash Player). Come see my work in person during the Art at the Source open studios event, June 6 & 7 and June 13 & 14, 2015--at Studio 48, in Sebastopol.

Art I'm Looking At: 2011 Art at the Source

Art at the Source is one of two major open studio events that allow artists working in Sonoma County to show and sell art directly to the public from their places of work.  Both events are held annually on a pair of weekends. Today, Sunday, June 12 was the last day of Art at the Source showings. Art Trails, the other local open studio event is held on two weekends in the fall, in October.

As usual, I got a late start on the last day, so only got to see about 15 artists--and that many mostly because I headed first for The Barracks, which brings a large number of artists together under one roof (in buildings that once were barracks at a naval air station on the western edge of Santa Rosa).

I particularly enjoyed the assemblage work of Maris Peach (www.marispeach.com), paintings by Suzanne Edminster (www.saltworkstudio.net) and by Karina Nishi Marcus, and the hat block collection of hatmaker Amy Smith at Flying Color Studios. These open studio weekends are wonderful for the way they bring artists and the public into direct contact, but also for the chance meetings among art lovers they may engender. In Maris Peach's studio, I enjoyed talking with the artist about her work, about a little girl that found these doll parts frightening, and with a man--whose name I didn't catch--about  T. E. Lawrence and The Seven Pillars of Wisdom; later I enjoyed meeting a young photographer (a visitor, not an exhibitor) named Gwen that shared my eye for unintended art. An excellent way to bring art to the community and to bring the community to art.

The photo above is part of Maris Peach's extensive collection of the odds and ends she uses to make her assemblages; the strings of doll appendages immediately caught my eye. The bottom photo is part of the large collection of hat forms I found in the studio of Amy Smith--unintended art, but beautiful nonetheless. But Ms. Smith is not just a collector of hat blocks, she's a hatmaker that puts the forms to excellent use making all manner of interesting headgear.