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In this newsletter, I’ll share images of my studio and thoughts about what’s going on – about collage chaos and a new work undone and redone. I will tell you about the project where papers got moved and something became something else. The image below is a view of my 5′ x 3 1/2′ worktable. It looks messy but I don’t think it’s as cluttered as usual. Notice the metal palette knife, the water tubs and bottle of acrylic medium. Notice the painting on the wall beyond the worktable is a framed collage titled Green Grid. Notice tall open wood shelves on another wall with pads and papers.
Notice the table is covered with painters canvas. On top at the front edges is a canvas strip that looks like an abstract painting. It’s not. What you see is a barrier surface I use when I paint papers. I work with a palette knife and push paint beyond the paper edge onto the canvas strip. Papers are typically 9″x12″ cut up from large drawing or printmaking papers. The paint marks on the canvas strip are the patterns the palette knife creates. I replace the canvas strip every month or two – especially when I want to cut it up and use it in a collage painting. Notice I’m working with the color green. Notice, the painting on the wall is painted in the same green colors you see on the canvas strip and the same colors in the paint jars.
COLLAGE CHAOS
I like to work on several projects at a time and there’s never enough space on the worktable for more than one or two projects. If I have to move anything to make space for something new, it goes on a side table so I can continue to look at it. I want to see the work every day. When I see it, ideas continue to percolate. If there’s no space on a side table, I put the project on a broad shelf under the worktable. I don’t see the work but can pull it out if I need to.
The image above is a jumble of paper triangles – loose and unglued – a disorganized mess. The black painted surface you see, is a 16″x24″ wood panel underneath. The jumble was set up for a collage. It was left unglued. The collage got interrupted. I moved the wood panel to a small side table to make room on the main worktable. I thought the unfinished collage would be safe, because I placed 3 large paper pads on top. Two weeks later, when I lifted the pads, I saw every paper triangle was out of order. I had undone my collage. I never took a photo so didn’t know how to put the papers back in the same order.
The image above shows an open flat file drawer that sits right under my worktable. The flat files have 5 drawers. Two are filled with collage papers. Notice small sheets of hand-made papers on top of the stack with black and white (or black and gold) stripes and dots. Notice curled white canvas strips in the lower right corner. I cut up leftover unprimed canvas. I will add strips to a painting on canvas. Notice this drawer needs to be organized. It will take about an hour to sort through everything, but I’ll “discover” new collage media I didn’t remember I had.
The image above shows painted papers for a new collage that I painted in acrylic with a plastic palette knife. Notice how I place the painted papers onto newsprint on my studio floor. Some of the papers are still wet and sit in their own space. As I continue to paint, I move papers that are dry and place them in stacks. Notice papers are painted green, yellow, white and black. Some papers have patterns that I scratched into wet paint between paint layers.
The image above is my finished collage with triangles on 16″x24″ wood panel. It looks very different from the jumbled triangles in the image on top. I think this collage should be called “Serendipity” – it was a surprise to see the undone collage, but it gave me an opportunity to re-order the image and create something new. Collage is all about chance and change.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
I like to recycle art. All the triangles in my new collage are cut from a 22″x30″ painting on paper that was stored in a flat file drawer under a stack of other works on paper – and probably 3 years old. There is no image of the painting so I can’t show you what it looked like before it turned into triangles. I didn’t like the painting, but I do like the triangle collage. Please send you comments about recycled art. Tell me if you like the new image and the way the triangles are organized as a grid. Do you notice the triangles are set in chevron stripes?
In the image above, I’m standing in front of my 4 collages at the Silvermine Arts Center (1037 Silvermine Rd., New Canaan. CT). I was one of 6 artists who spoke at a gallery program on August 26, 2014. I assumed the sophisticated audience knew my works were collage, and didn’t want to hear about how I made collage or the materials I used. Because the works are geometric and abstract grids, I talked about positive and negative space. I misread my audience but was saved by Jeff Mueller, the gallery director who got the Q&A started when he told them my work was made with hand-painted paper collage. The audience thought the work was printmaking! Jeff told everyone they would see the work differently from up close, and they immediately walked up to look and started to ask questions. I learned an important lesson: Never assume you know what an audience sees, and never assume you know what an audience wants to hear.
The quote above by Douglas Adams – “I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be” perfectly described my situation.
A NEW COLLAGE SERIES: TRIANGLES INTO DIAMONDS
My recent collage METRO Series show geometric grids with squares and rectangles. Some rectangles have interior triangles. The new TRIANGLE series show geometric grids where triangles become diamonds. The spaces are opening up. There’s more texture and contrast.
The collage above (image: 11″ x 10″), shows thin white papers that create triangles stacked point over point and reveal black diamonds (negative space) below. Black is painted drawing paper. It was a lot of fun to create overlapping triangles. Shapes vary. Notice top and bottom rows are cut. Nothing was pre-planned.
The collage above is a horizontal grid (image: 8.5″ x 11″) with 6 rows of black paper triangles. It’s a collage in 3 layers. Touch the collage and you feel the black collage papers sit on top of the white Japanese rice paper pasted below. The rice paper covers another layer with black vertical lines below.
The collage above (image: 11″ x 9″) includes black diamonds and horizontal stripes on thin white rice paper. Notice the black diamonds are stacked triangles. It’s difficult to see what’s on top (positive) and what’s below (negative).
My blacks and whites are not pure. I work with color even in black and white. I add Nickel Azo Yellow acrylic to Zinc or Titanium White. I add Pyrole Red acrylic to Carbon or Ivory Black. I might also add Turquoise Thalo Blue to the blacks. I work with a palette knife as I layer acrylic paints. My blacks and whites include red, yellow and blue.
The collage above (image: 11″ x 9″), is made with many overlapping white triangles that create the black diamond spaces behind. The black negative space is flat painted paper. This collage is open. I framed it and deliberately left it unglazed. I want you to see glue, smudges, and the hand of the artist. You can touch it and you’ll feel the overlapping white papers.
I’m continuing to work with triangles. These images will grow into larger works on canvas.
WHY TRIANGLES?
I saw an image of an African textile with a diamond pattern in black and white that inspired the new triangle diamond series. I am intrigued with triangle patterns and love black and white. I think black and white are colors (many times I insinuate yellow into white and red into black). I think there are so many ways you can create patterns with triangles. It all depends on the shape of the triangles and how they stack.
IMAGE: 640_nikkal 1_ 11×10
The TRIANGLE DIAMOND collage above (image: 9″x10″) was the first small work in the new series, Four were exhibited at the Silvermine Galleries recently. Now they’re back in my studio and I plan to play with the design in a larger format. I will look at the small work as I create a large work. It may look different.
I need a lot of papers if I plan to work in large format. I’ve been painting papers for days. Every paper was black or white. Then, I decided to detour from black and white to painting colors for a collage with thin diamonds. I started to paint papers in green, brown, teal blue, golden yellow, black, white and red.
IMAGE: 640_triangles diamonds canvas 24 x 24
The image above is a new finished collage with diamonds. It’s a geometric grid on 24″ x 24″ canvas made with painted papers. Notice there are triangles inside diamonds in this painting. I love the colors. It was so much fun to paint colors in layers, color over color, and scrape into the paint to create stripes and patterns. It was a challenge to place the papers on the diagonal. I didn’t lay the papers out in advance. The collage grew organically.
IMAGE close up triangles diamonds canvas
The image above is a close up of the collage and shows overlapping papers before they were glued down.
IMAGE: painted papers on the floor.
The image above shows a growing stack of painted papers on newsprint on the floor in my studio. I know I need many, many more papers.
Thank you for reading. Please email me comments and questions. I have more triangle and diamond collages in process, and will write about the work in upcoming newsletters.
Metro: blue red grey, paper collage 28″ x 44″
Invitational Group Exhibition
Atrium Gallery, 4th floor
Morris County Administration and Records Building
10 Court St., Morristown, NJ
September 8, 2014 – January 5, 2015
Reception: Friday, September 19, 2014, 6-8
The title of this show was seven x seven because we were a group of 7 artists and each artist showed 7 works. Many of the 49 works were very large paintings. The Atrium Gallery accommodated everything in a beautiful, open space.
The image nearby is my collage on paper (38 x44 inches), titled Metro Blue Red Grey. Each block was painted and pasted – piece by piece – from the center out to the edges. Every block varies in size, and color relationships determined how the blocks were put together.
Our reception included a special program where we spoke about our work and about how we organized the show for this particular exhibition space. We were pleased the large audience liked the Q&A program.
Schedule a studio visit. See this collage painting and see more new works. Contact nancy@nikkal.com