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Tag: collage

Finding Home: Amy Wilson Flaville

I feel like I’ve been writing a lot this week about our traveling lifestyle. Maybe it’s been on my subconscious lately. We’ve been talking about our future home a lot recently, what that might look like, where it might be. These collages by San Francisco artist Amy Wilson Flaville reminded me that none of us are guaranteed a dry and comfy bed each night.

Upon first glance, I fell for Flaville’s use of color and pattern in these shopping cart collages. As I looked a little more at her work this morning, I saw more. I saw those colorful patterns as happy memories, the kind we store up in our hearts and carry with us everywhere we go.

We carry our homes within us, which enables us to fly. — John Cage

Whatever our situation, whether we find ourselves living in the lap of luxury or pushing all our earthly belongings in a shopping cart, it is what is inside that sustains us. The people who love us, who we have loved, we carry that with us and no four walls can contain it.

If you’d like to see more of Amy Wilson Flaville‘s work, please visit her website.

All images via the artist’s website. Artist found via The Jealous Curator for Emily Henderson.

October 3, 2013
Delicate Immersion: Elise Wehle

I find it very refreshing to come across an artist for whom the most important part of her creative process in the process itself. For Utah artist Elise Wehle, the delicately intense, repetitive handwork in her cut paper collages provide an escape into her world of process.
It seems we can all suffer from tech and connection overload these days. Moments when we are completely disconnected and far away from a glowing screen of some sort have become fewer and farther between. These pieces in which artist Elise Wehle immerses herself with their deliberately tattered textures, precise cuts, and vintage feel are the perfect antidote to a world obsessed with tiny screens.
It’s almost as it we’re glimpsing peek of an Instagram feed deteriorated. The photographic cropping of the images recall those ubiquitous scenes in our social media each day. But they have aged, maybe giving us a reminder that those moments are fleeting– perhaps too fleeting to be constantly clicking and updating.

If you’d like to see more of Elise Wehle‘s work, please visit her website. I’m thinking of starting a little daily painting study to help me unplug & disconnect each day. What’s your method of getting away from technology?

All images are via the artist’s website.

September 23, 2013
The Freshmaker: Heather Landis

In some ways, it seems like collage work is on the downside turn of its recent resurgence. There is so much of it out there, it can be a challenge to find work that feels fresh and original. Los Angeles artist Heather Landis uses a tight palette of color, cheeky use of typography and just the right mix of vintage and modern in her collages.

Her palettes are filled with those decidedly vintage-feeling hues of peaches and pinks, accentuated by the steely greys that were so indicative of the atomic age. Much of her work seems to deal with the coming loss of “innocence” brought on by turbulence of the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, and well, just the end of what many perceive as the The Golden Age of pop culture.

The women in Landis’ collages seem to be blissfully unaware of what is soon to come. Beatific domesticity will give way to struggling to push through the glass ceiling and climbing the corporate ladder.

But Landis isn’t hitting us over the head with messages. Just subtly drawing us in to her happy-go-lucky world, then subversively reminding us that what used to be wasn’t always better.

Want to see more of Heather Landis‘ work? Go on over to her website and her Society6 shop.

All images are via the artist’s website and shop.

September 16, 2013
Well Placed Pop: Guy Catling

Sometimes, all it takes is just a little somethin’ somethin’ to take an ordinary image and transform it into something unexpected. UK artist Guy Catling has found that adding some well placed color and pattern can lead to some pretty spectacular imagery.

Black and white vintage photographs are beautiful, but add in brightly colored faces and floral patterned mountains and they take on a whole new modern life. Bright shots of geometric shapes in these scenic photos mimic the lines of the photographs simply yet beautifully.

The patterns added to this trio of well dressed men adds not only a bit of pizazz, but with the Victorian-floral and Native American inspired patterns these guys are sporting, the story behind the image has possibly changed. Ah the power of color and pattern!

Want to see more work by this talented artist? Check out Guy Catling‘s website here.

All images via the artist’s Tumblr.

August 29, 2013
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

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artistic pathfinding by lesley frenz

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