Friday 20 January 2012

Mind the gap. Perhaps you forgot.

I have found this theme extremely hard. This is the best I could do without using images.

6 comments:

  1. Nicely done, Crafty! Especially like the big number 5 and the arrows pointing at...the gap!

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  2. I like it too! Nice use of a compromised book cover. And the use of 'MIND THE GAP'.

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  3. Yes indeed, the texture of the woven bits is fabulous. Such a nice slate blue, too, contrasting with the red.

    I apologize if this theme is more difficult than it is fun...I have a secret reason for choosing it, which I will confess on Monday, when I'm able to post my own effort. But my not-so-secret reason is that I bought a couple of those compendia of collages published by the National Collage Society, and I've been struck by what a large percentage of them are entirely abstract—strips of torn paper, that sort of thing. And I've always wondered, "Is it because collage artists are worried about the copyright for images they use, that so many of them work with only abstract elements?" What do you guys think about copyright/copyleft issues? Do you ever worry about that stuff when posting art on the web (or publishing it in print)?

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  4. Lovely stuff! I must admit that abstract collages are not really my thing but I do love Kurt Schwitters ofcourse - one of my heroes - but haven't really made many in the past so it's nice to come out of my comfort zone to do things like this. Nice to be challenged once and awhile!

    As for the copyright thing - I was confronted with this dilemma recently when uploading work to redbubble. I was very aware of showing just the work that contained very few recognisable elements that could be deemed copyright sensitive. Quite hard actually as a lot of my work is from old magazines and books etc. Hopefully I've changed them enough to skirt round that problem. having never been challenged it's hard to know!

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  5. Thanks for the comments everyone! I agree with Michael that it is good to be challenged. I admire artists who specialise in the abstract form - it takes a special talent to put seemingly random bits of paper together into a coherent and striking composition. Collage allows us to use papers from many different sources and as such I think that we are able to get around copyright issues through appropriation of images, most of which would be pretty hard to recognise out of context anyway.

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  6. Interesting discussion. I initially started working with vintage elements that would have no copyright issues but found that limiting and have graduated to cutting up more recently published images. I think if you take a snip of this and a snip of that, as Crafty Dogma pointed out, you are pretty much okay.

    This challenge brings to mind an artist (I own one of her pieces and may photograph a portion of it and post it) named Elvie Ten Hoor who made beautiful collages of torn paper. Found this on the web:

    "Elvie (Mrs. Perry) Ten Hoor) was active in the Chicago area in the middle of the last century and was an influential artist, educator, and author who co-authored several books on the arts, at least one dealing with collage and assemblage."

    If you dig further you may be able to find some of her work on the web. Well worth a look!

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