Canvas to the Imagination

My interest in collage and altered books has compelled me to become a scavenger. When I am wandering around outside I am always on the lookout for interesting bits of natural materials, like the above acorn caps I found the other day as I walked back to work after an errand. I pick up things like this because there is something about them that attracts me, like the shapes, even if I have no idea how I can use them in future work.

These are some of the many feathers I’ve collected or been given and I’ve started keeping them all together in box. The feathers in the photo above are a mix from peahens, chickens and crows. I have lots of lovebird feathers as well as ones from a cockatoo.

Leaf skeletons are another natural item I’m always on the look out for, but they aren’t easy to find since Vancouver’s wet climate typically causes leaves to rot away. In the spring I came across layers of magnolia leaf skeletons under a bush in Stanley Park and I’ve used a few of them in my work, but I haven’t come across any more since then. Anne gave me the small box of holly leaf skeletons pictured here, and they are absolutely lovely.

Hopefully my collecting won’t get too out of control as time goes on, but it’s pretty typical of collage makers to have HUGE stashes of stuff. I guess the theory is that you can never have too much material to work with.

This was a frustrating piece to work on because of my idea to use thread. I wanted to create structure with the thread by wrapping it around and across the rusty wires. It was tricky trying to keep the thread tight and untangled, but also threading it around the wires in the first place was maddening at times because I needed more hands. I also had to be careful not to snap the wires or accidentally rip them back out of the book they’d already been glued into. I’m sure Boris heard quite a few noises of frustration as I worked on this. The rusty wires are old bed springs I scavenged the last time I was on Bowen.

Material in this altered book: Japanese paper, book, rubber stamping with ink, beach glass, thread, rusted bed springs, and Lovebird tail feathers from the Yuukster.

Detail of the thread wrapping and rusty bed spring.

Detail of the rolled pages from the bottom.

Five Wonderful Things:
1. Picking up my red umbrella from The Umbrella Shop on Broadway where I’d taken it for repair, and finding out they fixed it for FREE. (Buy an umbrella there because they are awesome!)
2. Getting starting on altered book number five.
3. Creating a button design to submit for the upcoming One Hot Inch Action show.
4. The amazing power of alone time to re-energize and pull my attitude about life out of the toilet.
5. The little Chickadees and House Finches that come to visit my fourth floor birdfeeder.

“Flowers have incredible power. Their fragile beauty ad brief life can teach us to enjoy without attachment, to experience deeply while knowing full well the experience is temporary. It is the same with all life. We will have pleasures and they too will be transitory. We are free when we are able to enjoy our pleasures without trying to hold on to them, when we are present without emotion-charged memories or looking forward to the next time. Life will have its joys and sorrows; to live fully we must live from the source, without attachment to either the pleasure of the pain.”
~ Open Mind by Diane Mariechild

I found the above quote a few weeks ago just as I was about to upload to flickr the dahlia portrait of Ariane. It seemed very appropriate given the subject matter of the shot and it also relates to some of my thoughts lately. I purchased the dahlias for the shoot from City Flowers Express at the Kitsilano Farmers Market earlier in the day. I chose dahlias specifically because both Ariane and I love them, and also they happen to have been in season at the time. Dahlias are amazing works of art in flower form, and they come in a wide range of colours and shapes.

This shot was inspired by the Spring is In the Air self portrait I did earlier in the year. I like how both shots are so happy and fun, and yet they each have a completely different feel. The photo below is a behind-the-scenes shot I took because it was amusing to have Ariane’s feet sticking out though the bunches of flowers.

I love this shot and it came about solely because Ariane put on her lovely green dress after I was finished photographing the main idea I had in mind for her shoot. (I’ll feature it in my next blog post.) I like it when things happen beyond what I had in mind and of course my ideas always evolve when I take them out of my head and make them a reality. I like how delicate this photo is. It was fun to experiment with moving the dress and shooting on a slower shutter speed combined with the flash.

The title of the photo, “Dancing on the Inside”, was suggested by Boris. It suits it very well.