Blue Moon

There's a Blue Moon tonight. My favorite art work of my own is titled "Blue Moon". It was conceived at the American Craft Council, Sarasota, Florida show, in 2002. My business name was Silver Moon Studio. Across the aisle was a potter who called his business Blue Moon Studio. During the course of the show he explained that he and his wife (and fellow potter) had found their farm in upstate New York, with a pottery studio already built on it, on the day of a blue moon.

I was sitting in my booth thinking about a blue moon being the second full moon in a month when it occurred to me that, no, it would simply be a very sad moon. I did some quick sketches right away and had intended to share them with you, but I have misplaced the sketchbook I was using at the time. Anyway, I did not follow the sketches very closely. I very rarely do. The piece didn't come to fruition right away; I finished him in 2006.

He was sculpted in Creative Paperclay with a wood and wire armature. His clothing was also made of paperclay with acrylic paint and silver leaf. I knew that he would be wear all shades of blue with some purple. I didn't plan on the red tie. It was a last minute decision. It was his choice and it is out of character for him, but he wears it any way because it was a gift from the sun.

"Blue Moon" is living in the Atlanta area. He found a new home when we were there for the American Craft Council Show in March 2008.

Happy New Year!

Magic

Are you familiar with the work of painter Chuck Close? I had the pleasure of seeing some of his work at the Salvador Dali Museum in St Petersburg, Florida, a few years ago and I was enthralled.

For those of you who don't know, he does facial studies on a huge scale. From a distance they are realistically painted faces - his early work was photo realistic - but up close they turn into a grid of abstract squares. They change as one walks across the room. There is a definite element of magic.

There are a couple of programs about Chuck Close that the Sundance and Ovation TV channels (PBS too?) show, check them out if you get a chance. In addition to telling about Mr. Closes' life and some of his philosophy, they show him creating his magic. I watched Chuck CLOSE, a Film by Marion Cajori last night. I could watch it over and over. Between interviews the film follows the progress of one painting.

There are clips of the artist working and as the the camera pans in and out you can catch that moment of magic where abstraction turns into light or shadow on the plane of a face.

I find it thrilling. Perhaps you will too.

The book completed!

With silhouettes cut from all of the pages it was time to make the book stand.

This proved to be a bit of a challenge. I had drilled dowels into the base thinking I could simply attach chipboard to the dowels and glue the spine of the book to the chipboard. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I applied the glue and held the book in place........and I held the book in place........and I held the book in place........well anyway, I held it a long time, but it didn't matter, the book had gotten too fragile and the spine was disintegrating. The glue held it to the chipboard at the bottom, but not at the top, so the book slumped.

Yikes! The figure couldn't sit on the book if it was slumping. Heck, the silhouettes couldn't even fan out! Time was running out, I needed to get the piece finished in time for the show and I couldn't sculpt the figure until I had the book standing so I could see how its legs would sit on the book. After a few minutes of panicking I decided I might be able to drill a couple of holes through the book, then wire it to the dowels. If you are ever going to drill through a book I recommend doing it while the book is laying down, it will be much easier I'm sure. It wasn't easy, but it worked!!

I had the head and torso and hands of the figure sculpted, now I was able to sculpt the legs and arms in the position I had in mind.

The piece made it to Still Life in G Gallery in the Village of the Arts in Bradenton, Florida in time for the show. I wasn't completely happy with it when I finished, but I ran out of time and I had to stop working on it. It's the base I'm not happy with. I asked people to give me the names of characters they remember from books they've read and I wrote the names, along with the quote on the base, but it's all too pale I think. There's no contrast. Deb McKeever, the owner of the gallery is going to invite visitors to the show to add names to the base. If I'm still unhappy with it when it comes home I can always work on it some more!

Does Santa have to be dressed in traditional colors?

Blue Santa? Turquoise Santa? Acid green Santa? What do you think, can it really be Santa dressed in these non-traditional colors? After seeing these colors in the stores and in the Christmas issues of several magazines I was inspired to dress this year's troop of Santas in bright, non-traditional colors (you can see how they started life in the July 28th post, "in the studio (at last)"). I listed this group of cheery fellows in my shop on etsy - http://www.olivamoon.etsy.com/ . Only the red one has sold, and it was sold before they were listed on etsy. Now, I admit that I did finish them late, I didn't list them until December 2nd, so I'm unsure if they haven't sold because of the late listing, or if the bright colors don't appeal to people.

So, what do you think, does Santa have to be dressed in traditional colors?

Cutting, Cutting, Cutting (the book continues)

I looked for faces with interesting profiles everywhere. Cutting the silhouettes took three weeks. I went through almost 100 #11 x-acto knife blades. The pages that were cut away left wonderful negative spaces giving me a great collection of reverse silhouettes (a future project?).

No matter how often I changed the blade I ended up with some fuzzy edges. I realized that it didn't matter because while we do remember the people from the books we read when we are young, the memories fade and the edges become fuzzy. So the piece will read: The people in the books we read, especially when we are young, become a part of us. The memories may fade and the edges become soft, but they are with us forever.

The book continues

Wow, it's been a long time since I've written! Time has been flying, I must be having fun.

The sculptural book piece is finished; I'll share it in a later post. It took a lot longer to finish it than I had anticipated, as things often do. While I had the book standing up on end it looked like it wanted a figure to sit on top, that would look down into the pages. I still wanted to do some kind of faces ....SO....I decided to cut silhouettes from the pages of the book.

At this point the question was whether to cut many different silhouettes, or do one silhouette 1200 times (there are 1200 pages in the book). As I was pondering this I thought how many of the characters from the books I read when I was young had stayed with me, I still think of them, some had helped to shape me. I decided to cut many different faces in the book. All 1200 pages. It took a long time. A very long time.

The book will stand

I've been playing with the book, it seems to want to stand. It's a bit fragile, so it's going to need some support and a base. So far I'm seeing more of what's going on around the book than what's going on in it.

Sculptural Book Art Revisited

Having committed to participating in the sculptural book show I have until November 20th to finish my piece. It's my first work of this kind and I was unsure of which direction to go in. Research showed both sculptural books created from exsiting books, like the ones pictured in the previous blog and books created entirely by the artist; a great book on this type is "The Penland Book of Handmake Books". I'm going to work on an existing book.

I looked through my books and after narrowing it down to two, finally decided to use an old Lino Typefaces book because the finished piece will probably have faces in it. What do you think? Too obvious?

sculptural book art

I recently recieved an invitation to participate in a sculptural book art show, this intrigued me because I hadn't heard of sculptural book art. I googled it immediately and was amazed by what I found. Two of my favorites were: Brian Dettmer, an American artist who cuts layers from pages to reveal images and words beneath and Su Blackwell from England who does intricate cuttings from the pages of books that she then stands up to create magical worlds. Totally different work, but both take my breath away. I hope you enjoy them too.

more work in progress

This morning I opened the drawer of the flat file to hunt for photos and ephemera to add to the assemblages and the drawer exploded. It was bond to happen sooner or later; it was overstuffed with, well, stuff. I long to be organized, I work to get everything in order, fully intending to keep it that way (I actually believe that I will), but of course it never lasts. In a hurry looking for something I'll riffle through, or coming home from a successful hunt I'll toss new finds in; whatever the cause chaos inevitably returns. Today is the day to reclaim the drawer. I'll let you know what treasures I rediscover.

in the studio (at last)

In the studio today after a long (too long) dry spell. Well, not a dry spell really, it was more a matter of not having my priorities straight. So, now I'm trying to keep those priorities in order and make studio time the top one every day (when possible of course). The problem this morning was what to work on; new inspiration, or old project? The answer seems to be a bit of both. I often work with Creative Paperclay and it's best built up in layers, so I added layers to some already-in-progress work. I also started some backgrounds for some small assemblage pieces. This afternoon I'm going to search through my treasure trove of the bits and pieces that have followed me home and see what wants to be part of the assemblages. I think I'm also going to get out the sea glass that we found on the beach in Grand Turk and think about making some souvenirs from our family vacation. I guess that's part of the problem too isn't it? So much inspiration, so little time!

Anne Ross Oliva

olivamoon.etsy.com