Embroidered Collage

Woohoo!  The Art-o-mat at the Doylestown library has been cycled out from when I first blogged about finding it last year.  The current machine has some nifty gears and shiny bits in with the robot that don't show up well in the photograph.

Of course, I had to buy a bit of art.  I chose a mini art quilt by Nikki Wheeler and a collage by Rachel Freeman.  Both are nice pieces and I'll store them with my atcs.  As a bonus, Rachel's collage has a neat paper hinge so it will stand up on its own.  I had to jiggle and fuss with the machine to get it to accept the tokens but it was a great deal of fun.

  I am amazed at the level of fine complexity in Kristin Hodge's work.  That picture to the left is all contained in the small space of an ACEO!  It's a very thin layer of acrylic paint done by a technique she has perfected over the years.

Her works remind me of how much I love non-objective abstracts - ones that don't claim to represent any part of reality.  Yet they have a pattern to them, partially formed by the nature of her technique and partly by her choices in color application.  Using subtle, natural pattern is something I'd like to be able to do in my own art.

Her larger works, including canvases often more than two feet across, can be seen at her website http://www.kristanhodge.com and her smaller works, including more aceos in various color schemes, can be purchased at http://khcolor.etsy.com .

  Marissa Lee was one of my first "favorited" artists on Etsy back in 2005.  Her layers of pattern and the evident texture from the woodblocks called to me.  I love her work but kept not being ready to buy a full-sized piece, so when she first printed ACEOs I knew I had to get one.  That's it to the left, my very first purchase of an art card ever.

Each of her artworks is a hand-pulled relief print from two or more carved wood blocks.  Some are only patterns and some are representational.  Sometimes she'll shade ink colors on one block and sometimes use only one tone.  The intriguing part is how the two overlaid images complement each other.  I would like to be able to capture this effect in my own work, despite the difference in media.  The prints themselves don't have texture, but the texture of the carving shows through in her delicate inking, which only increases their appeal to me.

Marissa, or mlee, sells her art at http://mlee.etsy.com and has been a featured artist there.  She blogs regularly and well at http://mleefineart.com .  The best place to see the range of her prints over the last couple years is at her flickr account - http://www.flickr.com/photos/m_lee/ , just click on the first collection - Woodcuts - and enjoy.

I stopped to pick up a few books at the Doylestown library and almost immediately reverting back to an excited teenager.  They have an Art-O-Mat!  That is just so darn cool.  I'd been aware of them, but this was the first time I'd actually seen one.  It hadn't been there during my last visit.  I told the librarian this while getting my token - since I just had to buy something.  She wasn't particularly impressed.  Ah, well, I'm sure other people will think it's cool.

  It was very hard choosing what to buy.  I settled on a box by Michelle Cutler, since it said fabric art and jewelry and I was intrigued to see if it was the former.  I ended up with the latter - the cute little box to the side enclosing a metal pendant with a polymer clay bead strung to it.  Simple, but nice.

I want to go back!  I want one of the little books and an abstract and and and... There was just something horribly cool about pulling the knob and having the little box drop down and needing to get into it to see what hand-made piece of originality that I had acquired. 

My cousin (father's brother's son), Shane Oborn, gave our grandmother a beautiful book of his photography for her 80th birthday.  The party was the big event that I traveled to North Carolina to attend, but it had the wonderful side effect of being able catch-up with family that I hadn't seen for a decade or so. 

Shane published a book showcasing his striking nature photography, interspersed with quotes relevant to him and to the works that he presented.  Some of the colors were fantastic and the layout was very well done, with full-page photos and shadow-boxed partial page phots varying the viewing experience.  He's a web developer by trade and currently has a site for himself under development at www.obornphotography.com, which includes a link to the book. 

In addition to his images I was interested in his satisfaction with lulu.com, since I have some thoughts for future projects that involve publishing full-color books in  a similar fashion.  He's pleased with the service they provide and I was happy to see how well one of the books turned out.