A few new pages...

Here are a few new pages from my hopefully VERY soon to be self published artist book, "Fremde". There's a lot to explain here when looking at these individual pages out of context, but here's a general idea of what's going on:
Each page on the left shows several small photos that I picked up while stumbling around thrift stores and flea markets in Bavaria while on an artist residency at a German Kunstlerhaus in summer 2010. Each page on the right shows a small painting that was made from these photos cut-up, collaged, and sewn together with my own drawings and found materials. This project is all about the pitfalls of translation; the tug and pull of visual information that shifts when an image or ideas slides from one language (or point of view) into another. I have been working on these individual book pages off and on for over a year now, and golly! am I ready to see the final product. All the components (image, text, backgrounds...) put together at last, for better or for worse...

A Grand new possibility...

Sometimes you work and work away in your studio, waiting for some shining spark of inspiration to come dancing through your window, and sometimes it just arrives in a cardboard box from UPS on the front porch. The latter was my situation yesterday when I received the photo (below) of my dear colleague Heather's grandmother. Heather had recently put out an inquiry to art friends online, as to whether anyone wanted this image to creatively re-purpose (approx. 16" X 20" and in a wood, gold brushed frame no less...) and of course I jumped at the opportunity.
Just received the package from Florida last night, and may I say the real thing does not disappoint! On an interesting (and perhaps cosmically significant?) note, I just order a huge roll of Arches 200lb. watercolor paper from N Y Central Art Supply this week, 51" X 10 yards. I think that Fate has spoken through its messenger, Happy Coincidence.