Bicycles and Peace, the Collage

Bicycles and Peace, No. 9

This is the collage I made this weekend. It is not the ninth in a series, that's just part of its name.

Today I am going to do something I never do: explain the artwork, or at least tell about my idea and some of the elements in the collage. Edward and Damon tease me at art shows when people ask me what was my inspiration for or the meaning of a piece. (And I wince.) Edward's advice and our running joke is, no matter which painting or collage, I should reply that it is about man's inhumanity to man.

My thoughts about this collage started when I found the bit of hand written manuscript of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, his ninth revision. That is one of the two No. 9 references. My second inspiration came from recalling the story that Tolstoy learned to ride a bike at age 67, which frankly doesn't seem all that old anymore, and thoughts about how that anecdote is used for encouragement etc.

You can see the print of the manuscript as the background of the vintage bicycles image. Other elements include the peace symbols, the dove and the olive branch, and an image of a certain musician who is often associated with peace. Plus something about riding a bicycle seems peaceful to me, as well as earth friendly and all that. On the dark blue paper in the top left is a ghost image of Leo.

The collage on the screen appears just a tad lighter or less saturated than in real life.

Vintage bicycle images are from The Graphics Fairy blog. 

This piece is now available in my etsy shop, plus I have had a couple of prints done...just ask.

Chicago Mosaics

Chagall mosaic

 Last week we took a 2 day just for fun trip to Chicago. Seeing this magnificent mosaic was in the top three of my to-do list.

R in front of "Four Seasons"

The mosaic covers four sides of a large rectangle.

R and Edward admiring the work

We also found some lovely mosaics in the lobby of our hotel. Congress Avenue Hotel, built in 1893.

Watermarks, one of four community produced mosaic benches by Navy Pier.

The mosaic artist of Mosaic Geek blog lists several other mosaic art works from when she was in Chicago for the Society of American Mosaic Artist convention. I wish I had been able to take this mosaic walking tour, but just walking around the city without a list was very good for public art spotting.

Pretty Little Things for Arts Goggle

The Fort Worth Fall Arts Goggle is coming up in a couple of weeks (Oct 8), and I will be in a new spot this time, at 311 Bryan, just off of S. Main. This an an outdoor tent (awning) space, so for a change I will be keeping my fingers crossed for no rain.

Also, since I will just have my tent display space instead of a large room with lots of wall space, I will be showing mostly jewelry. I still hope I will be able to hang a few of the little mixed media collage pieces on an exterior wall, or find some other way to display them.

I spent a couple of days this weekend making necklaces and these little jeweled bookmarks. Last winter R and I sat down and made 8 of these as gifts for her teachers.

A selection of the jeweled bookmarks

Eiffel tower bookmark in action

Linked here and here.

Post Heat Wave Harvest

Oh no! I let some of my okra get too big! But it's pretty understandable considering that we just got our first 2 okra of the summer last week. Our poor plants manged to survive the 70 days of triple digit temperatures this summer, but not to produce fruit once the heat from Hades settled in. I'm just not used to checking for vegetables in the garden, only checking for dry soil.

There are two overgrown yellow squash lurking in there. We started harvesting squash about a week and a half ago.

Even the peppers had a hard time in the heat. I only had one smallish red bell pepper and a very few jalapenos, then one of our two jalapeno plants wilted and died. Now, the bell has blooms and little green peppers all over it.
The only things that kept on going through the summer were the chard, most of the herbs, and weirdly...

...the arugula.
Which we've really been enjoying in various salads, tossed on hot-from-the-oven pizza, and as an important part of our onionless tabbouleh.

Everything looks happier now, and we even got a good rain Friday evening. Now maybe we will actually get some tomatoes!

Mixed Media Collage on Wood...Time for Another Arts Goggle

My table covered in art supplies
and new and in progress small works on wood panels

With my daughter back in school and while waiting to hear back from the Arts Goggle folks, I have brought out the art stuff and started painting, cutting and pasting again.

In the process I discovered a great blog, The Graphics Fairy, with thousands of royalty free, and free free, vintage images. Karen posts a new image or images every day, like these cute French chairs which she is offering in several different colors.

One of them is sitting in the far left in my photo above, with the cushion hand-colored, just waiting for the right inspiration to become one of the fun little collage pieces.

Fall Arts Goggle will be Saturday, October 8th from 4-10pm in Fort Worth's near south neighborhood.