Tall Bottle

I've spent today in New York artist Jonathan Talbot's 'Dancing With Design' collage workshop at the Vancouver Island School of Art, exploring the process of composition, and this collage is what I made at the day's end. Jonathan has sold over 35 000 pieces of art and listening to him was like entering a much larger world where anything is possible. I had expected we would examine each design element and principle and how to use them effectively in various ways, with plenty of hands on. Instead, I have the sense that I opened the door to a hurricane of such magnitude that I still don't know what hit me - in a different and positive way. The learning feels complex and in need of digesting; a view of a larger whole. Sometimes I wish I could bottle the essence of a workshop experience, to uncork and breathe in, in the future. I'd label this one 'Talbottle' - for a tall order and tall shoes to fill.

Teacher for the Night

I completed my 'Trust the Process' stitched collage today, adding a key to the center, sewn on with gold embroidery thread, and stitching around the outer edge. I won't post a close-up, since it contains magazine images and there may be copyright issues. I found using the design reference sheet that I made to prompt me to translate words into visual language, was a useful exercise prior to intuitively scanning magazines for images. I've depicted stages of the creative process in a circle, with two figures -a female in white free falling trustfully and a male in black with a painted mime face and expression of alarm - opposite each other on the circle, with a joyful woman blowing an elongated stream of bubbles with a giant bubble holder, arcing back and forth between the two figures - holding the tension of these opposites. I've also included the skeleton of a fish to mark the death or completion in a process, which gives way to a bear underwater, or the start of something new 'bubbling' in the unconscious. There is also an ancient pregnant stone figure, kissing lovers stretched out in the sand, three riders on horseback 'running with it', a fabric 'world' or bubble held by gravity and a backdrop of a blue star-filled sky with tall thin dark trees reaching to touch them. I took a photograph of the collage and printed it onto silk, but I chose not to use that version because the colour is much less vibrant. Members of my art quilt group also did this exercise, but not all the collages are completed yet, so I haven't taken a photo of them together as our 'collective artist wisdom quilt'. I have also signed up for a collage design class with Johnathon Talbot later this fall.