collage cards

Before nearly every special occasion (holiday, birthday, anniversary) I get out my materials for making cards and work away. I have previously blogged about collage cards here and here.While I use print and drawing media in cardmaking, I tend to make collages most frequently. I do not cut paper, I carefull rip shapes from it and only use a steel edge ruler for helping to tear straignt edges, such as when I want a coloured background or in landscape images. While liquid glue and an old credit card are good for spreading, a glue stick is the most convenient.

The detritus in the picture above was caused from tearing egg shapes from patterned wrapping paper. I always save scraps of different papers if I can imagine them being repurposed at a later date, and this is a good example of that.

Often cards are related to artwork I am going to make or have already made. This 1988 St Patrick's Day card (made for my "new" boyfriend - now my husband!) refers to a dream I had in the early '80s and subsequent artwork, Ocean of Life. I had also studied the poetry of Wallace Stevens in 1986 and adored the poem Our Stars Come from Ireland, inspiring the imagery of the green stars in churning water.

This postcard from 1988 was also based on a dream: on my first visit to British Columbia; although I didn't see any whales on my ferry trip from Vancouver to Victoria, my mind really wanted to! I remember wanting a durable backing for the card to make it from BC to Toronto, so I made do with a piece of cardboard from a cereal box.

Other cards have also been inspired by travel. This card was inspired by my visit to Sicily in 1997 where I saw some Greek ruins at Segesta.

Quite often I simply make cards from what is in front of me. In this case I simply reproduced the image of my avocado houseplant. I used some patterned green wrapping paper that I had saved in my re-use paper file.

Likewise, this get well card, made for my daughter in 2008. simplified the fish tank in her bedroom.

I am often lazy with images too, simply using egg shapes for Easter (as above), shamrock shapes for St Patrick's Day, and hearts for Valentine's Day...

Often I reuse images in the same year, if I am obsessively working on a project. In 2015-2016 I was hard at work on The Skipping Project (I refer to it here, here, here, and here), a multi-media project that was to be my MA thesis project (for personal reasons the project was never finished). I used the child's feet skipping rope in a number of cards. The rope in this card was made from a collage tape I made (using double-sided tape) from chocolate wrapper foil.

I used the skipping image again for Paddy's Day, though I replaced the shoes with traditional dancing hornpipes and drew the rope in as shamrocks.

Inspiration from dreams, part 1

I have been transcribing from my dream diaries, most diligently since last June, as it is a necessary thing for me to do - before I am unable to read my own scrawl and also to refresh my memory about images and concepts. I have had a long interest in dreams and dream interpretation (starting with Jung and Freud but also developing personally beyond prescriptive interpretation). Last week at the studio drop-in (Dún Laoghaire Rathdown Arts Office) at The Lexicon in Dún Laoghaire, I decided I would do a left-handed dream drawing of a recent vivid dream. I am right-handed but have found in the past that doing an entire drawing with the left hand gives me enormous freedom.

My fascination with dreams has inspired both my visual work and my writing. Recently I have been included on the Poetry Sound Map reading my poem "Portrait", which was published in New Irish Writing back in 1989. My reading is a recent one, and if writing today, I think that perhaps I would have titled the poem "Self-portrait". It is entirely inspired by and describes my interest in dreams.

I have also recently had a few poems published online in The Scarlet Leaf Review (Jan 2019), two of which reference dreams. In 2016, within my writing, I made a point of familiarising myself with classic forms in poetry, and used the precision of the vilanelle form to write a poem based on a dramatic and vivid dream. The final poem was published in November 2017 in The Examined Life Journal, a vehicle out of the University of Iowa's Carver College. (The poem is impossible to read from the image, so I have transcribed it below.)

A Dream of Dead You

Earth embedded in the fingertips, your dead hands wave
And I notice your shrunken face, your ragged clothes
I will guide you, dead you, sadly but firmly back to your grave

You wanted to remind me of the pleasure you gave
And came back to me, impossibly, from the ground you rose
Earth embedded in ehe fingertips, your dead hands wave

I am glad to see you, cherishing the love we used to crave
But we no longer have that time, your heart no longer glows
I will guide you, dead you, sadly but firmly back to your grave

Your hollow black eyes reflect the darkness of a cave
And funereal depths where not even a cold wind blows
Earth embedded in ehe fingertips, your dead hands wave

From confusion and terrible anguish, you, I cannot save
Lustreless and wretched, a reminder of what my heart knows
I will guide you, dead you, sadly but firmly back to your grave

I have a life that you do not, I beg you to be brave
But your hopeless stance echoes mine and weariness shows
Earth embedded in ehe fingertips, your dead hands wave
I will guide you, dead you, sadly but firmly back to your grave

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Not all my dreams are about death! This oilstick drawing, based on a dream, I have entitled "Ocean of Life". I am not sure when I did the drawing, as it is unsigned and undated (at least on the front of the drawing, it is hanging, framed in my hallway!). I think it is drawn sometime in the 1980s and I may have had the dream in 1983 when I was living near Lake Ontario in Toronto. At least it was Lake Ontario that featured in the dream. And I remember the figures joyously bouncing in the rough water. I remember at the time I recognised this as a parallel to a previous dream where a school of dolphins were playfully diving in turbulent waters. This, however, is not a left-handed drawing.

In next week's blog, I will continue discussing dreams with more work inspired by dreams.