Category: Collage

Shared Wonder: Beth Hoeckel

Mr. Forager’s sister has been visiting with us since Saturday and it has been so fun watching this bro & sis duo together! But it’s got me missing my own brothers like crazy. Our siblings are our first conspirators in adventure, first sharers of secrets, first partners in memories. The Point of View series by Beth Hoeckel captures that time of imaginative connection we have with our earliest companions.

Glacial

There are places and objects that have deep meaning for us due to the memories they hold. Even more than that, the things that we experienced together can immediately take us back to that moment in time. To this day, anytime we hear a certain type of whistle– my brothers and I do a double take, thinking that it’s our dad, calling us home for dinner.

Count Sheep

Magic Carpet

As we grow older our appearance changes, yet when we look into the faces of our siblings, we still see the mischievous countenance that signaled the beginning of an adventure, a game of hide and seek or a deeply competitive game of Monopoly. We don’t see the gray hair ( or lack thereof! ), the extra pounds, the wrinkles.

Mountain Rangers

Ranges

I was really hoping we’d be in Seattle long enough to get one or both of my brothers out to visit. They have to see this. And we need to make some new memories together!

Want to see more of Beth Hoeckel‘s work? Be sure to check out her website ( click on her name for the link ). And, bonus, she has prints of some of these pieces available at great prices in her Big Cartel shop!

All images are via the artist’s website.

August 13, 2013
Color Harvest: The Deep Blue Sea

Maybe it’s finally living in a place surrounded by water after living in the desert last year, but I have been finding such inspiration in the various hues of blue to be found in the waters around Seattle! So many gorgeous shades from the deepest, darkest blue to green aquas, I just want to plunge right in and see what mysteries await!

It’s only natural that this blue obsession is trickling over into the artwork I’m foraging on my Pinterest boards.. here’s a little deep blue sea inspiration to get your own seas churning!

[ clockwise, from top left: Elena Kalis | John Armleder | Miranda Lake | Emily Ferretti studio | Michal Fargo | Jennifer JL Jones

What colors are inspiring you this summer?

All image credits linked above.

July 16, 2013
Paper Cuts: Atelier Bingo

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with collage. My first college art professor loved collage and it figured heavily in her basic drawing classes. At the time, I found the cutting, arranging, and pasting pretty tedious. I was more of a thrown some paint around a canvas kind of art student.. but I did love how flexible a collage composition could be. In their work, French artistic duo Max and Adele of Atelier Bingo utilize collage, gouache, ink, screen print AND digital media to create abstract compositions as expressive as any painting.

..

The flattened panes of bright color immediately reminded me of the famed collages of Henri Matisse— his Blue Nude remains one of my all time favorite pieces of art, ever. The layering of such simplistic shapes assists our eyes in completing the composition. No details are needed– we are allowed to fill in the blanks– but only by choice.

The flat planes of color are mixed playfully with pattern, keeping our eyes moving across the plane and helping us to add to the story our eyes are concocting along the way.

Want to see more work from Atelier Bingo? Of course you do! Check out their website, Tumblr and Facebook page.

All images via the artists’ website. Artist found via It’s Nice That.

July 9, 2013
Karina Noel Hean

The other day, Mr. F & I were listening to Rick Steves on NPR as he interviewed a woman who, when she entered places in Scotland where her ancestors had dwelt, she felt like she knew the buildings intimately– even going so far as to identify rooms that were not open to the public. Have you ever experienced that degree of deja vu? I can’t say that I have, but I can certainly relate to arriving in a place and feeling as if you’ve known it all your life. In her Field Notes series, Santa Fe artist Karina Noel Hean draws in collage what that experience might be like.

Field Notes XXI, collage, acrylic, graphite, etching and ink on vellum, 17×11

In these abstracted, dream-like landscapes, what we see are glimpses of places, fragments of details that our minds may be remembering. Whether it be from this lifetime or somewhere buried in our ancestry ( or past lifetime, if you believe in that sort of thing ), the artist is conjuring up a visual representation of what those perceived memories may be like.

Field Notes XV, mixed media on vellum, 17×11

Field Notes XVI, mixed media on vellum, 17×11

Shapes collide, morph, twist and turn around and upon each other. They feel like landscapes from another world and in a sense, they are.

Field Notes XX, collage, acrylic, graphite, etching and ink on vellum, 17×11

To see more of Karina Noel Hean’s work, please check out her website here. How about you? Where have you been that felt like you’d been there before?

All images are via the artist’s website.

May 29, 2013
Artsy on Escape Into Life: Max Warsh

When I first saw the collage work of Max Warsh on Pattern Pulp, I totally fell for it– hook, line & sinker. The combinations of visual textures in such limited palettes is just stunning! See more from him in my Artist Watch on Escape Into Life today here !

Untitled by Max Warsh

Max Warsh on Escape Into Life

May 28, 2013
Missing Pieces: Lisa Hochstein

During our time in Joshua Tree, every time we’ve driven to San Diego or made the trek “down the hill” into Palm Springs, we’ve experienced the wind tunnel that exists in the San Gorgonio Mountain Pass, where over 4000 windmills provide energy to Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley. When I saw the latest collage series by Lisa Hochstein, Missing Pieces, the shapes seem to echo the turbines and the torn papers reminded me of wind’s inherent power.

Missing Pieces 2012-5, salvaged paper, 12×16

Missing Pieces 2012-3, salvaged paper, 12×16

Whether wind and its harnessing machines were an influence to the artist, I do not know. But I can’t help but see in the grid lines an aerial view looking down onto the giant arms of these energy producers as they spin, some barely moving others cycling at a steady pace.

Missing Pieces 2012-6, salvaged paper, 12×16

Missing Pieces 2012-1, salvaged paper, 12×16

In the shredded pages that make up these collages, I see the destructive nature of the desert’s blasts of air. All over, we’ve seen evidence of wind wreaking havoc across the landscape, even in our own backyard here in Joshua Tree.

Missing Pieces 2012-2, salvaged paper, 12×16

That’s what I see in Lisa Hochstein’s work. What do your eyes see? If you’d like to check out more of this artist’s work, please visit her website.

All images are via the artist’s website.

April 23, 2013