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Month: September 2019

The Artist as Junk Collector

The Artist as Junk Collector

Detail of new yard art

I learned about recycling at a very early age. I remember stepping on vegetable cans, probably before I went to kindergarten. The procedure was to empty the vegetables into a pan, rinse the can, remove the bottom with the hand crank can opener, step on the can to flatten it, and insert the top and bottom into the flattened can. I was the person who flattened the can.  “They need it for the war,” Mother said.

When I was weaving, I recall reading how Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz scavenged the docks near her home for sections of rope for her sculptures because she couldn’t buy materials.

I’ve always picked up stuff from the ground and brought it home – shells, sticks, pine cones, stones. When I started making baskets, I picked up more stuff. As near as I can remember, my junk collecting went into high gear when I bought my house in Stockton. The house had been cleaned and freshly painted in parts of the inside.

But the garage was full of things the previous owners, and before that her parents, didn’t take with them. Drawers of screws, nails, nuts, thing-a-ma-jigs, rusty old tools, and scraps of wood, as well as a shed full of clay pots.

At an estate sale, I got a set of old army flat files that just happened to have handfuls of rusty little parts of things which got added to my growing collection. A few years ago, I started noticing interesting junk in parking lots, like eye-glass frames now flattened by traffic. All those little plastic pieces that come with electronics as part of the packaging also get added to my stash.

Almost twenty years ago at a National Basketry Organization conference, I was in a workshop taught by John Garrett who worked with metals. From time to time I checked his website and saw that he had moved on to making large wall pieces using what looked like metal and plastic items hanging in strings.

Fascinated, I decided someday I would try to make something similar using some of this junk I’ve collected. I’ve reached the point where, if I plan to do it someday, I’d best get on with it soon!

Early last year the florescent ceiling light in my kitchen broke and my sons installed a new LED fixture. The rigid plastic cover was about to go into my recycling bin when I decided it might be useful to make that junk piece I wanted to do. I was on the lookout at estate sales for something that would work as a base. I found a former towel rack that was the perfect size. I had some kind of a dish rack I picked up years ago that became the top to hold the strings.

Little by little I thought my way through the project. I bought four 100 count packs of slip rings online.

Front view of yard art

I found hose clamps at Harbor Freight to hold the slip rings to the top. I drilled holes every 3/8ths of an inch across the top of the kitchen light cover, and wired the dish rack to the plastic with wire I had kept from my father’s workbench.

I had planned to hang some small white plastic scoops that come in a supplement on the rings, but realized that they wouldn’t show up against the plastic back. Reds and oranges worked best so I went through my stash again. The main problems were how to attach things that didn’t have any holes in them. Old keys worked well, colored cable ties were easy. I had a box of blue plastic rings that came with bottles of milk, which my cats used to love to play with. They went onto the slip rings easily.

The whole construction measures roughly 45 inches tall by 14 inches across. It is sitting against a wall of my storage shed under an overhanging roof where it gets a gentle breeze but not a lot of wind. Maybe I should add some jingle bells to it.

The front view photo above may look like there is something else behind it, but that is the shadow because I took some photos in full sun, hoping to get the shine on the rings.

Side view of yard art

 

I was surprised how quickly it went together on one of those 100+ days when I worked indoors on it.

 

My boyfriend teases me, that when I’m gone my sons will toss all my junk into a dumpster. That’s okay with me, but before that happens I should think up some other junk projects.

Detail of end of strings on yard art
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The Little Things

The Little Things

Close-up of a section of my word collage

Over the summer, I have been trying out different materials and combinations of papers by somewhat following projects in the book “Creative Paint Workshop” by Ann Baldwin. I say “somewhat” because I don’t have some of the exact colors of paint she uses, and it is not locally available. I am starting to understand how glazes work and which colors go well together. For me, reading about the process doesn’t explain it. I have to experience it at the end of my brush to “get it.”

The other difference is that in the last two collages I wrote about, I was using papers from my trips that had certain meanings for me which I didn’t want to cover up completely. In this collage, I used pages of words taken from an assortment of old books, magazines, and my stash which I randomly selected. It is called a Word Collage because there are no images.

I remember seeing a large collage of words at one of the local art shows some years ago. The artist had carefully pasted down sentences, and phrases of words, line by line, horizontal and vertical, many of them well known sayings, and in the center was an image of a yellow rubber duck. I liked the idea, wished I had time to stand there and read the whole thing, and realized what an incredible amount of work it had been to make.

In addition to using no images, I did not build up texture with fabric, cardboard, or molding paste. I started with a piece of watercolor paper which had a few dabs of paint here and there. I pasted down papers from old books, magazines, and a library signature card.

First layers of papers and paint

I added a few rubber stamp images, letters made with a stencil, and a first layer of acrylic Quinacridone Burnt Orange paint. The different papers take up the paint differently because some are really old, and magazine paper has a different finish than books. I filled in the white spots with Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide. I added fluid Paynes gray around the edges.

Library signature card
Page from old dictionary

At some point I noticed that the page from the shorthand book had a title: “The Little Things.” With all the talk in the papers and on the radio, (I don’t do TV), about how divided we all are, it occurred to me that in personal relationships it’s often the little things “that divide us — that catch our attention.” So I picked up my Sharpie and wrote that phrase under the shorthand paper.

Page from shorthand book

The very dark area on the left side is an attempt to try a technique in the book. The instructions were to put a clear layer of matt medium over the first layer of paper and again after the paint layer. Then paint an area with regular acrylic Paynes gray put on thickly, and while it is still wet, write into it with a rubber paint shaper to reveal the lighter paint underneath in the letters. My try at this didn’t come out as well as I hoped it would, partly, I think because the paint I used is old and a bit lumpy.

The finished word collage

In the process of layering these paints, I noticed that fluid Paynes gray going over the yellow produces a sort of green hue which I liked, so I carefully touched a few more areas here and there to spread that green about.

The yellow shape in the lower left corner is the first leaf to turn color and fall off my birch trees. It sat on my kitchen counter for a week or more, until it became the final touch in this collage.

I like the idea of making collage using words, especially if I just grab various papers and paste them down, noticing what the words say as I look at it later, and pondering what they might mean to me now.

 

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