Really — a quarter of the year done? Fabulous; I’ve even moved a few things forward.

Meetings & Making

I was starting to see signs of spring around here, and decided it was well past time to take my camera for a walk. Nothing like a string of cherry trees in full bloom to put a smile on my face.

The cherry blossoms got a visit, and then got uploaded, and put straight to work as layers, as I chatted during a group studio call.

These are sitting in my Current folder, while I decide if they’re worthy of titles, etc. I like one more than the others, at this point, but tweaks are evening out the ratings.

Learning

I went back in for the second half of the Collage Makers Summit projects. Gloria Gelo was my starting point, and a wonderful way to connect with her strong composition skills. She showed us how she layers a transparent color to just slightly mask or knock back collage elements. I use that concept in Photoshop when I add layers and adjust opacity; good to know how to apply in the physical sense too.

Collage is about the pieces having a conversation with each other, the connections between the pieces.

Kike Congrains, Collage Makers Summit 2024

Then Margarete Miller showed us collage books, Jack Ravi repaired photos with gold leaf, Delight Rogers used masks to advantage, Cat Rains preached to the choir about the value of daily collage, Kike Congrains demonstrated advanced cutting, and Drew Steinbrecher himself the fearless summit leader, had great ideas for using photography, abstracted into collage. Great tips and ideas throughout, which I imagine will be surfacing throughout the rest of the year.

Viewing

I think I’m close to wrapping up my March viewing plans, and ready for a new month’s worth of shows. I hit a new distance goal as a I ventured in a different direction, to find Beloved of the Sky, a show by Sherida Charles at Douglas College in New Westminster.

Her work, all larger pieces in charcoal and woodcut prints, reflect the gorgeous trees she experienced on Vancouver Island.

Sherida’s had lovely pointers into the local Vancouver art community, as I continue to explore this city. Someday I hope to bump into her, and thank her in person!

Applying

For Clocking in for Unpaid Labour, I’m altering time cards: I’m imagining the regular parts of our day as orderly intervals, and the extra side of the time card as multi-tasking, underappreciated chaos. I’m using ribbon from the local fabric store, originally intended for another, unrealized idea, to represent both the orderly and random threads, and asemic scribbles to stand in for the notes spewing from our brains.

Here, I’ve only started the orderly sections, as a peek. I noticed in the call that I’m meant to leave the time card visible — oops, barely, on that blue one!

I’ve also got two options for World Collage Day, coming up in May, which I hope to have more details on soon. How about you — are you finding creative people or outlets?

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