It’s another two-city week, where I try to hit the first-of-the-month events in both Seattle and Vancouver.

Viewing

This First Thursday in Seattle, I was delighted to run into several collage buddies, one IRL for the first time. The chance of my knowing someone at an art event in Seattle is much higher than Vancouver, but 30 years of community vs. less than 1 will do that. All in good time…

The show at 4Culture was a strong surprise; Shift Gallery had lovely work as always, and Stephanie Hargrave showed off the work from her collective, Cluster, where I recognized a LOT of names, including June Sekiguchi.

Then, north for First Saturday in Vancouver: I checked in at Shady Acres — a funky building that was a funeral home — and had a good chat with Leigh Elliot, before moving on to Parker Street Studios.

From the First Saturday website, I knew there were black & white pieces from First Saturday artists on exhibit in Marney-Rose Edge‘s studio. Downstairs, the new Parker Street Gallery had a lovely group show. The pieces I was drawn to, these joyous florals, belonged to the same artist who let me into the building! Slowly, slowly, I’m connecting the dots in this town.

To round out the week, I was able to check in at Paul Kyle Gallery, where I had a lovely welcome, lots of great information about framing and presentation, and of course, good art.

Meetings & Making

If it’s midweek, it’s time to hang out with the Arizona Collage Collective. Ahhh, more spelling book spreads and wandering, entertaining conversation.

I’m working up a slide show/movie of all these spreads — I would love to have it look like flipping through the pages, but let’s see how I do!

This week’s image for Paris Collage Collective was inspiring, but whether I like it? That’s still simmering. Here’s what I have: does it bring me joy? Mild happiness?

Ehhh, it’s okay. I might try again, or post as is; we’ll see. I think I’m playing it too safe, too invested in getting a result, rather than taking risks.

Experimenting

I finished up a lovely class from Louise Fletcher, and now I have to figure out how to move forward and apply the lessons. Here are my thoughts on that; the upshot is: experiment! See above — note to self!

Along those lines, the most different, intriguing piece I created this week went like this.

• First, I notice some large posters on my street were slowly getting ripped up.
• I wonder why I don’t want to rip them up, like everyone else is doing. Because I know the photographer for some of them? Because it feels like vandalism?
• Then I grab my camera, and at least try to capture what’s left.

In the spirit of experimenting, I started with one of them as a base layer, added other scribbles and collage, and then tilted the palette towards warm, with a brown layer.

Oooh, what have I done?? What an interesting, different direction. I’m excited to see where this goes, with the rest of the shots, and with other urban abstracts, not that I need a new series at the moment.

And yes, I finally did tear some of the paper off for my collage fodder pile — exciting! Where are you pushing outside your comfort zone this week?

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