Surreal Assemblages of Maissa Toulet

I can't recall how I stumbled upon these luscious pictorials! These are the coolest and most trés modern little pieces of art I have seen in awhile. They really speak to me. They are refreshingly different.

Her use of materials is ingenious.

luvluvluv.
You can find more of her intense artwork here on her elegant website.

TWICE as free!

This sounds like such a cool and non-commercial idea!!!!! It's kind of a localized thing but I felt it was worthy of posting.

THIS YEAR THE ART IS TWICE AS FREE
as Paper Kite Press Studio & Gallery Celebrates Their Second Anniversary

GIVING BACK TO THE COMMUNITY
August of 2009 will mark the Second Anniversary of Paper Kite Press Studio & Gallery at its current location on Main Street in Kingston. Last year we had the crazy idea to give away all of the art on exhibit in August. It was such a HUGE hit, this year we're making the art twice as free.

FREE ART
All works on display for the August Anniversary show will be FREE (limit one piece per household). All we ask is that you genuinely WANT the piece you decide to own. Yes, free. No catch, no strings, no tricky marketing gimmicks. Like it, and you own it. Period. This is our way of saying "thank you" to the community that has supported us, and, our way of supporting a community that continues to say "thank you" to us for bringing the arts to Main Street.

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?
First, we are asking ANY artists who are interested in being considered for a solo or group show during the 11 months after August to submit their portfolio, representative work, slides, or CD of images for consideration along with ONE display-ready piece. The display-ready pieces will be hung during the month of August, and will be available to anyone who wants it for FREE. Selections for solo or group shows for the next exhibition cycle will be made by the end of August. All future shows will be by artists who support our philosophy of giving back to the community by donating a piece of art to August Anniversary Shows. Second, we are asking ALL artists (or owners of art) to consider donating a display-ready piece of art to be given away at this event, even if you have no interest in being considered for a solo or group show at this time. Any and all artists who would like to share in this opportunity to give back to the community are invited to bring one to three pieces of work to the Gallery on Sunday August 16th between noon and 5pm. The exhibit opening will be held on Friday, August 21st, and is free and open to the public to attend. Visitors to the opening who are interested in a particular piece of art are asked to return on Sunday August 23rd at noon to claim the work. All art will be displayed during the month of August, and will be available to anyone who wants it for FREE. Last year, 55 pieces of art (all that were donated) were given away to happy homes.

SPECIAL BONUS FOR ARTISTS WHO DONATE ART IN PERSON ON
SUNDAY AUGUST 16TH
Artists who are able to bring their work in person for drop off on Sunday August 16th will be given the opportunity to participate in an invitation-only group show that is scheduled for July of 2010. The unique nature of this event is such that it requires your presence on Sunday to make a selection and take that selection with you.

WHAT DO I DO NOW?
For details on how to donate art, how to have your work considered for a future show, or other ways you can help support our initiative to give back to the community, please contact one of us:

Jennifer Hill Dan Waber
David Hage, Gallery Coordinator,
443 Main Street Kingston, PA 18704, USA, wordpainting.com

www.sharonspringsdk.com

After so much work, I finally have something to show for myself and something to share with you today.
SharonSpringsDK
A couple of years ago, I got a grant from NYS for a project that I was working on that involved creating collages, taking photographs and making movies inspired by a town near where I live. Sharon Springs was a booming town in Victorian times. There are several mineral springs located in the town, and back in time bathing in medicinal waters was en vogue. Beautiful and elaborate buildings were erected to house the throngs of people that came upstate to vacation and soothe their souls in the healing springs. This type of therapy has long lost favor, and the town has been left to decay away into history. Recently a Korean firm purchased half of the ailing buildings with plans to put Sharon Springs back on the map again by renovating the buildings and opening them to tours of people of mostly Asian descent who still enjoy therapeutic benefit from mineral springs. I don't think the local folk are quite convinced that this is a good thing, however, and I think that they are butting heads with the new owners. So far, the new owners have done nothing to any of the buildings, except for the addition of new posted signs in places that were traditionally open to the public. This makes my project even more interesting, since you can no longer legally get into these spaces.


One of the facets of this project was a website to house all of the components. I have had 2 years to hash out in my mind 1oo ways to present the material. I even paid for 2 years of web hosting and web housing before I could make up my mind on how best to do it. My conclusion? Just plunge in and DO IT already! Most of the problems seem to exist within me, as go back and forth deciding how I want it to be. Conflicted, it took me awhile to progress.
The main menus were my first battle and I ended up doing a piece of artwork to use just for this purpose. There was so much written about Sharon Springs in it's heyday, so I chose several vintage quotes to use on the menu pages and cited their sources. I am not certain I like them the way they are just plunked on top of the page. I may go back and change this. (Do you have an opinion about them? Feel free to comment!)
The backgrounds for the artwork pages became my next quest. I decided to use fabrics, old texts and patterns. These came out okay, and I am pleased with the resulting virtual frames. Next will be the photos. I have a bazillion photos and it's going to take me awhile just to cull out the best ones that should post online. An artists' work is never done, right???
Do take a poke around the site if you get a chance. So far, only the artwork is posted. Each menu is open, but you will find only the artwork links are live for now.
For me, it's ONWARD to the photo sorting party!

The Silence!

I know, it's been a silent blog for a couple of weeks. That doesn't mean that collage thoughts are not happening in the background or that projects are not coming to fruition!

Recently I posted a bunch of collages done on Yupo that were celestially themed for Cecils Bakers Dozen. I have taken these works and decided to create a book from them. I am working towards publishing on Blurb. I had purchased a book from my friend Aya on Louchelab, and it was really sweet quality. Altho I have printed on laser several times and created a bunch of small independent books, I am interested in a more professional look for my work. The Blurb format seems to be a nice match. There are a few choices for sizes...and this was helpful since I had not designed the book for Blurb specifically.

The project has required a lot of computer time. I had to scan all the artwork and retouch them in Photoshop. All the little dusts and scratchies, the little blobs of ink or glue that hit the scanner bed and stuck there, any stray cat hairs from Latrina-the toilet-kitty, this all had to be removed. I had to spend some time thinking, (Horrors!) to come up with suitable captions for the text. None of this seemed bloggable. Yet it has been work! The next phase is creating the book in the Booksmart software that Blurb provides. It's easy to do, I just want to play perfectionist on the layout. I want to use interesting typography. These things take time.

The other task that has me going crazy is a website I am working on. I received a grant a couple of years ago and was able to do a large body of work. I have procured a website and I am loading it with all of the content. This is also a computer heavy job. There's so many hours spent designing pages, coding flash, composing movies. It's labor intensive! But it isn't too bloggable. At least, not for now!

I am eager to get off of the computer and back to the studio. For me, that's where the fun is! The discipline that is required to keep on track seems to be good personal medicine, I admit. It's not my strong point and probably never will be. Focus is something I have for a little while, until I am distracted! The website has been in the works for 2 years. It's really long overdue that I complete things. But when my free time is so sparse...I end up always choosing hands on creation vs. computer creation. It's a battle.

So here is The Silence. This moment when my blog is still and nothing appears to be happening. Then all of a sudden, there's going to be a virtual (no pun intended!) flood of graphic imagery, interactive pieces, and a book to feast on.

In The Hall of Stars

In The hall of stars
Originally uploaded by misphit

I would like to explain this series a bit philosophically. A lot of times I just present the art for arts' sake, and the reasoning and influence behind the works is lost perhaps only to me. That's why artists write abstracts and mission statements and all that jazz. I haven't had much occasion to write about my work. I decided that maybe by writing about the meanings behind it, I can help my brain along in finding a better way to visually describe things, and maybe help my audience along, too.

This particular series is about people and their connection to the planetary universe. I have always had a fascination for the stars and I feel that although they are far away from us physically, they influence us all in ways that we cannot measure through our 5 senses. I am humble enough to accept the fact that there are things that happen behind the scenes in this life that are at this time unexplainable. The moon affecting the tide is one example of the amazing things that we cannot exactly explain, but yet no one can deny it's existence. I also accept the simple fact that we humans just don't know it all. So the idea that there is an interconnectedness between us and the universe around us is not out of the question and I believe it has truth.
I treat astrology as a set of characteristics and information that humans have gathered thru centuries of taking notes, comparison, and experience. I don't consider it gospel. I do however see a simple correspondence between some of the basic ideas behind astrology and our reality. It is not an exacting science for me and never will be. I don't read my horoscope and plan my life. I treat it like maybe more of an influence. Again, for me these things are shrouded in mystery. I am not certain of the exact terminology, nor do I really care to pursue the details too far. I just know in my heart that I am connected to everything in the universe. Me, you, them, the chair I sit on, the room I am in, the country we live in, the planet we are on, the galaxy we exist in...we are all connected.
As Eckhart Tolle put it so smoothly in A New Earth, "The atoms that make up your body were once forged inside stars, and the causes of even the smallest event are virtually infinite and connected with the whole in incomprehensible ways."

This body of work was/is an expression of these ideas. I have used planets and stars as my visual language to show that in each setting, no matter how archaic, the cosmic influence is present. In some of these pieces I have succeeded better than others in translating this idea. I have left out reference to astrology specifically, only because then the viewer may try to identify (or not identify)) with that piece because of the astrological sign I would use. I don't want to be that specific...I have been concentrating on this concept, and I have more to say visually. If a teacher gave me an assignment and said, express what you read in the last paragraph visually, I would come up with something totally different than the artwork I have shared with you in this blog.
My challenge is to go back now again to the table and attempt to put on paper the ideas that are more abstract that exist in my head.

These pieces are destined for The Original Baker's Dozen International Collage Exchange that Cecil hosts in Fort Worth, Texas. I also hope to publish a book using some of these images and perhaps others...the ones that are still in my mind.

Artist Call: A Book About Death

A BOOK ABOUT DEATH: AN UNBOUND BOOK ON THE SUBJECT OF DEATH

Opening, Thursday, 10 September 2009.

Exhibition: 10 - 22 September 2009. Emily Harvey Foundation 537 Broadway New York City, New York 10012 USA


1000 Artists Each Produce Their Edition Of 500 Postcards In The Sprawling Unbound 1000-Page A Book About Death. The Book Will Be A Limited Edition: 500 Copies (Following The Number Of Artist Produced Cards).


An Open Call To Artists Worldwide To Contribute To A BOOK ABOUT DEATH.

A BOOK ABOUT DEATH is an open, unbound book produced by artists worldwide. Artists are invited to create a "page" in the form of a postcard about death– any aspect about death. Works can be of any design, personal or conceptual, color or black and white.

The original work about death stays with you, the artist; the 500 postcards produced from the work is for the exhibition, and are sent to the gallery.

Artists can include any information about themselves on the cards, front or back.

The 500 post cards are then mailed to the gallery in New York City for exhibition.

A BOOK ABOUT DEATH takes its inspiration from the late, underground American artist Ray Johnson (1927 - 1995). Ray Johnson’s unbound “book” of the same title was mailed to his New York Correspondence School “students” and included pages in his idiosyncratic style that were funny, sad and ironic “one-page essays” on death. With the A BOOK ABOUT DEATH project, artists are invited to plunge into subject in creating their own pages that score the dramatic final dance of death.

EXHIBITION & EVENT: Each artist contribution will be displayed in the Emily Harvey Foundation gallery space in New York. Visitors will be free to take cards and create their own book about death. As the cards are removed, the exhibition will disappear.

During the exhibition, a lecture/panel discussion will take place with a number of leading writers, curators, artists and collectors bringing together a number of salient ideas about death, books, mail art works, Ray Johnson and the global nature of A BOOK ABOUT DEATH. The panel list will be announced when it is finalized this summer.

There will also be a website for the exhibition, serving as the portal for A BOOK ABOUT DEATH.


HOW TO SUBMIT
1. Produce an artwork about death. Make 500 postcards and mail the package to A BOOK ABOUT DEATH c/o Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery 537 Broadway New York City, New York 10012. All submissions will be accepted if they arrive in time. Artists may produce more than one card if they wish.

DEADLINE: Postcards should be in the gallery no later than 5 September 2009.

2. Once images are produced, a light-weight jpg should be e mailed to MATTHEW ROSE, along with the artist's name and URL (artist web site address) for publication on the blog – http://abookaboutdeath.blogspot.com/. This will allow the organizers to archive the works and artist details. Other artists will also be able to visit the exhibition in progress.

Note: An “official” website is now being created by artist Caterina Verde at the address: A BOOK ABOUT DEATH

TECHNICAL DETAILS
The artist is 100 percent responsible for her/his image and card and delivery to the gallery.

FORMAT: Postcards should be at least 4 x 6 inches or 10 x 15 cm, but can be any size, but no larger than A4 or 8 1/2 x 11 inches.

To help unify the edition, please include the words "A BOOK ABOUT DEATH" on your printed post cards.

We have also included an image/text by Ray Johnson that could be printed on your cards.

PRINTING OPTIONS: You can either produce the cards yourself or upload the file to any number of printers for delivery to the gallery. You, as the artist are in complete control of your artwork and cards.

Option 1: A very inexpensive online printer offers extremely reasonable prices for a 4 x 6 inch (or 10 x 15 cm) card. PDF upload or online design is possible. Payment directly to the printer via MasterCard, PayPal, VISA are options. Please see: Overnight Prints.

Please note: The exhibition organizers are not working with this printer but in our research have determined that their prices are some of the lowest on the market, their print quality is high, service is good and delivery to a NYC address via United Parcel Service is a very good option.

Option 2: Alternately, artists are free to produce their own cards locally if they need to supervise print and image quality. Artists can sign and number their cards if they wish.

Option 3: Artists can also produce handmade cards, however, these cards must be in an edition of 500 to ensure continuity with other images. Artists can sign and number their handmade cards if they would like. Variety in paper and material is encouraged.

COST/FEES
Unfortunately we cannot pay any artist or production fees. Each artist has to finance production and delivery. Like in life.

LASTLY: The organizers will not collect cards for the artists. Institutions who wish to have a complete book will have to come to the gallery space and get their own pages/cards or assign someone to do it for them. The organizers are not responsible for the cards, but will see to it that all cards received are displayed and available to visitors. The organizers are not responsible for the return of any remaining cards; should there be any remaining cards, these will become part of the EHF archive.


SPREAD THE WORD

This kind of exhibition functions best when one artist contacts another and encourages participation. We would like to have a large and inclusive "book," one that touches upon the broad subject of death in many languages and cultures. There are no taboos here, no age limits, no areas or ideas that are prohibited. The exhibition organizers only ask that you submit good work, worthy of an interesting and exciting page in this global book. Please note that A BOOK ABOUT DEATH is not a commercial venture. The Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery has generously donated the exhibition space for the duration of the exhibition.


FOR MORE INFORMATION:
A BOOK ABOUT DEATH BLOG
A BOOK ABOUT DEATH
RAY JOHNSON ESTATE
EMILY HARVEY FOUNDATION
CONTACT MATTHEW ROSE

I am going to participate in this. I look forward to seeing the end result--creating my own book about death--and so I may have to go down to NYC to see this show also...

Cosmic seamstress

Cosmic seamstress
Originally uploaded by misphit

I am almost done with this 13 part series. It's been a struggle and also a revelation.
Yupo...my substrate for this particular group...has this ability to hold the vibrancy of acrylic color in a way that I cannot achieve on watercolor paper. I like the flowing effect of blended paint that remains frozen in time. It's controllable to a degree and sure does provide for an intriguing background to work with. I am exploring using my photography as a source for my latest work and Yupo allows the rich glossy photo to blend a bit easier into the work. I can't match this effect on paper. It's a small discovery, and it's something I can explore further.
The new glue I am using from Talas is PVA...it's terrific. It's holding down my photos much better than the Golden Matte medium because there's much more tack with this glue. I can take advantage of paper textures easier, since I don't need to coat the entire piece with medium. For this glue, application to the back of an object works just fine. It must have a very small amount of water, because my ephemera does not swell when I coat the back.
All this technical jargon!!! I just want to share my insight! However small it may be, I am earning the information by experience. You good reader, can take it or leave it, however I have lived it!!!