LAW 129: The Art of Making part ?

It has been a while since i written a post just about making art. So much of my creative impulse recently has gone into disassembling The Floating Empire, and the re-imagineering of Tesla's Revenge that the daily art making has taken a back seat. You all know that some times that that is alright. Whats not ever alright; beating yourself up regarding what you promised yourself you would accomplish. You know that the thing called Life gets in the way of all the best plans.

pages 1 &2, Love Songs, March 28, 29, 2017

I'm winding up my last altered book project, Love Songs. I do need to work on the cover, and inner frontispiece. Since i haven't quite decided what is happening with the aforementioned pages, i'm willing to let it sit on a back burner for awhile. But while we all wait for my brain to kick back into gear on this one, here are the spreads from Love Songs.

pages 3&4, Love Songs, 3.30, 3.31.17

Die Minnesinger, or Love Songs was a small German edition of unknown age, but likely from the 1920's. This is the Medieval German version of the French Troubadour tradition.

pages 5 & 6, Love Songs, 4.1, 4.2.17

pages 7 & 8, Love Songs, 4.3, 4.6.17

 I cut away everything but the main figures in each of the color plates i used. I than collaged behind them; playing the medieval imagery off from advertising coming primarily from the mid 1950s, with a dose of "the male/female gaze" thrown in for seasoning.

pages 9 & 10, Love Songs, 4.18, 4.24.17

The text comes from the advertising that i used, although it is often cut up and arranged in such away to provide a whole different level of context from the original use.

pages 11 & 12, Love Songs, 5.3.17

In honor of Earth Day this year i collaged a series of city maps(from the Hammond Ambassador World Atlas, c. 1954) on to the cover of a children's book, Merry Times, along with colored pencil drawings, and stream of conscious writing.

Yes, Magellan is also a very good studio cat! Really

I've spent the last three days prepping my newest book project, Looking for America. I harvested all the remaining city maps from the index of the aforementioned atlas, cut them to size, along with two spines for each set of pages, which were then glued into a foldable 'page' for signatures capable of binding with a Coptic stitch.

"finished" signatures, ready for Looking for America

Don't know where i am going with this one yet; it could be collage, or it could be drawing. I had fun with the drawing for the Earth Day piece. Likely there will be text. You will see it here, when it happens.

More later,
gail