Valentine's Day

I have been making occasion cards since I was a child as they were always class art projects -- something to do for our parents -- by teachers who were not artists and had to come up with something to keep kids occupied! I continue the practice, however, enjoying hoarding bits of interesting paper, and then as an occasion comes up seeing how I can vary the annual theme. Since I have recently photographed all the cards from my Mum's archive, that she has kept over the years, I can easily compare them. Here is a sample of Valentine's Day cards I made for my Mum, starting with this one from 2002, using bits of wrapping paper and coloured construction paper as a base.

This one is from 2008, the base card being white corrugated cardboard and the hearts and other elements are made of a spongey material with an adhesive backing. 

This card from 2010 uses white card stock as a base, some wrapping paper scraps, and various coloured paper scraps. I also made use of a silver pen!

I used some heavy green card stock for the base of this 2013 card, The white paper with white and gold bits threaded through it is specialised wrapping paper. The red heart is a bit of an envelope I think, and the red background is simple coloured photocopy stock.

The card for 2016 made use of red card stock as a base, and several bits of coloured paper scraps to make the hearts. Goes to show how one symbol, a heart, can be used repeatedly to create a different card. There were many more variations in the archive, but I thought these provided a good example.

Collage Cards - recently aquired archive

Many years ago, when discussing my Mum's Will with her, I suggested that she specify that all artworks from her artist children (there are several painters & writers in the family) be returned to them. Among items returned to me, after my Mum's very sad death at the end of this summer, were an abundance of special occasion cards that I had made for my parents over the years. My Mum had already returned some to me, while she was living, so I was surprised at the amount of cards that she still held onto. Making cards has always been an adjunct to my work - the cards are usually either ideas that I am thinking about for the future or ideas related to works in progress.

In memory of my Mum, I will post a few of the Mother's Day cards I made for her. This one has no date, but is probably from around 1986.

This one is from 2001. My Mum's sister had given me a big bag of pears from her garden and I did a lot of dawings and paintings based on them. I became pregnant that year, and pears became a symbol of fecundity for me.

This card is from 2005. I love blooming rhododendrons, though by many they are considered a weed tree.

This abstracted 3D bouquet is from 2007.

I have come across so many different types of daffodils/narcissi in Ireland and they often appear in cards. This one from 2009 makes use of different types of paper and specialised tape.

These roses are from 2012. There are plenty more Mother's Day cards, all different, but I thought I would just show a few that I particularly like.

The Skipping Project - Postcard 1916

I have mentioned before that I often use card making (for birthdays, special occasions) as sketches to help me work out ideas. Since one of my themes for The Skipping Project deals with the transformation of trauma into children's games I decided to submit a piece when I heard about Postcard 1916. This exhibition, curated by Eileen Ferguson, is of postcards created in response to any word in The Proclamation or The Proclamation itself. I chose the word "children".

The image I have been working with is from a photograph of children collecting wood in the rubble heaps that was Dublin after the Easter Uprising in 1916. The relevant writing in the background of the collage is excerpted from my paternal grandfather's Witness Statement, made for the government in 1950, describing his involvement in the Uprising and other activities leading to the foundation of the state.

I repeated the theme for some recent cards I made.

The Postcard 1916 exhibition will be displayed again in La Vielle Poste, Larroque, France in August and  The General Post Office (GPO), Dublin - which was the HQ of the rebels in 1916 -is interested in acquiring digital images of the works for their archives.

Collage Cards

With Valentine's Day just a few days after my wedding anniversary, my husband  & I celebrate the days together. As artists, both of us have been making cards for years. Sometimes I go with the simple and obvious -- like this year's card of hearts:

Whereas last year, at this time, I was working on my large painting, Fractured City, so the cityscape / sunrise mostifs kept appearing in my collage cards.

Before xmas I had been working on some video footage of people jumping and skipping, for my current work research. So the white tights and black shoes of one of my niece subjects appeared in a few cards (several family birthdays around that time).

 Here are several collage cards from last year that again utilised the cityscape / sunrise imagery. I have a box of various colours and types of paper that I use for my ripped-paper collages. I am always saving or finding bits of paper that I think are interesting. The paper for the background "sunrise" in this birthday card was a pre-painted silver-leaf square on thin rice paper; I bought a stack of this paper in Toronto's Chinatown nearly 20 years ago for $1! The "lit window" squares are ripped from green tissue saved from a xmas cracker party hat. I think both the dark blue and purple might also be tissue from party hats too.

At Easter time last year I was being more literal with my portrayal of the sun as circular -- it made me think of an egg yolk. The sky is again that Chinese paper, but an "error" as it was not prepainted. The purple stripey paper and the purple "windows" are from bits of pseudo stained glass craft paper, leftovers from my daughter's childhood supplies. They are a tough paper and I like ripping them to create a natural white ripped edge.

Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday was my 20th wedding anniversary! It has been a great 20 years, and has just flown by. Our wedding date was chosen haphazardly as a day to correspond with a party my husband had in the 1980s, which was also close to Valentine's Day. So making a card for our anniversary doubles as a Valentine's Day card. Am I lazy or what? For this year's card I used some paper that I had picked up in Chinatown in Toronto on my first visit back there in 1995 (I moved to Ireland in 1993). The bundle of Chinese paper squares already had applied metal leaf and some paint on them; I used a piece as a backdrop for my abstract cityscape of ripped blue card. The additional heart and gold leaf is like a sunrise. 

In the spring of 1988, I started going out with this young man (the host of the above-mentioned party!). This portrait is from one of my sketchbooks of that year.

In 1991 we were living together in Toronto, and my job at the time allowed my spouse, including common-law spouse, to avail of my dental plan. It was a good time to get needed work done, including the removal of wisdom teeth. He was very smart, taking all the dental surgeon's advice seriously. My partner James is not holding a heart to his face, but ice packs to ease the swelling after surgery, and he is smartly wearing gloves so that his hands don't get cold!

In this portrait from a 1994 sketchbook, I suspect James was reading as he is looking down. Because of the colouring, I think I was using a conté pencil to do this sketch.

This drawing of James is from a 2001 sketchbook and I know he was reading because I have written "James reading" on the left page!

In this painting, Daddy Kiss, from 2012 from the Moments series, I have painted James with our new-born baby. Our baby is now heading for 13 years old so it is high time I did some new sketches of my husband!

The Tidal Series - Collages

In July I posted some images from The Tidal Series, pastel paper drawings plus what was left of a series of acrylic paintings -- a little figure that I had cut out from one of the 18  4' x 3' canvases! So I was pleasantly surprised that four collages from the series were in that drawing box I re-discovered a few weeks ago. I never expected these collages to still be in existance!

 Around this time (1986 perhaps?) I was getting ready for xmas and making cards. That year I had the brilliant, crazily time-consuming idea of making individual collage cards with the figure from the Tidal Series enjoying falling snow. Needless to say, this involved a lot of gluing tiny pieces of white paper onto about 50 cards... I know I still have a few of the cards myself, but the little card box they are in is somewhere in the black hole of my attic studio. I will eventually find them, but not today.

These four collages, though, are not greeting card sized; they are 55 cm x 37 cm. The coloured paper is mostly standard copier colour paper, but the interesting bits have other sources. In those days in Toronto (and environs) industrial estates had dumpsters that could be scavanged for great art supplies -- the glossy yellow paper, silver paper and gold tape (which I cut in thin lines) all came from a dumpster. The patterned turquoise of the figure's skirt is from wrapping tissue from a gift a friend gave me. I used a mix of matte and gloss medium as my glue, so there is an overall sheen on the collages. I still have some of the silver paper and gold tape with my supplies almost 30 years later and I still save interesting scraps of paper for use in collage cards that I still make for special occasions.

I love the combination of bright pink and silver, something I associate with a smallish Jackson Pollock painting I saw in New York on one of my early trips there. I am pretty sure the image below represents the last of the four collages that I made -- I thought the figure by this time was self-assured and had coralled the stars into the gold "net" formed by the gold lines emanating from her hands.

Fever Afterimages

Though I haven't quite finished with my "Moments" series (there is at least one more related painting that I want to do) -- I have had ideas for another group of monoprints and a painting percolating for the past year! With this in mind, I started preparing canvas. The painting will be a free-hanging piece, unstretched. I am making use of end pieces of canvas, I have sewn 5 pieces together and made hanging loops. I wanted to pre-soak the canvas, so here it is hanging outside to dry. I plan to apply texture in the form of newsprint glued on, though it will be completely covered by paint not as per Maritime Alps and Tree Kids where the paint was translucent. 

As is my usual practice, ideas for new work generally show up on my greeting cards first. These were all created in 2013 for various occasions. I haven't yet decided on the composition or colouration for the painting, but I expect to have it worked out with the help of the monoprints and drawings, which I am starting this week.

 I am titling this body of work "Fever Afterimages". For once I am not tentative about the title!