Thursday 31 October 2013

The Life Of Pie


The Wreck of the Edmund B


I'm adding one from my archives, too.  This one amuses me because while I was cleaning up reject cuttings from my work table, these three scraps just happened to land on top of each other; a little re-arranging and ...voila!

Weekly Theme

This week's collage should contain one or more round images.  I'm posting one of mine from the archives of 2011 as an example.

The Arrangement.

Monday 28 October 2013

andy's exquisite corpse party, part 1


I really got into this because I gave several rock-n-roll costume parties for Hallowe'en during the 1980s. I miss those crazy days! I imagined that Andy told everyone the theme for the costumes was Exquisite Corpse—that they should dress as though they were drawings created in that game. On one wall of the Factory he put up a huge print of his "CocaCola" (sideways). He also printed up Salvador Dali and Edie Sedgewick masks for his guests. (Dali didn't come to the party, and Edie, of course, was long dead.)

Predictably, not everyone paid attention to the costume theme—like the mystery dude who came as a huge fish. Andy himself chose to wear a mask of his own portrait by Vladimir Gorsky. The crown on his chest was painted by his friend and collaborator Jean-Michel Basquiat, who appears in Part 2.

andy's exquisite corpse party, part 2


On another wall of the Factory Andy Warhol put up an enormous still from a video of Keith Haring painting a floor. The still was black-&-white, but Andy set out cans of paint and brushes, and his guests splashed the wall with bright colors. Jean-Michel Basquiat is the guy in the "I Survived 3 Mile Island!" T-shirt. As for the midget-sized Indian boy...well, he just insisted on joining the party.

I want to wish everyone a Happy Hallowe'en and a fabulous Día de los Muertos!!

Lady Gaga's Day Off

Gaga: Halloween's when I take a day-off Andy. D'ya wanna do some Motorbike stunts?
Andy: Hmmmmmmm....why not?

RIP Lou Reed

The annual Andy Warhol Costume party was put on hold after news of Lou Reed's passing.  Folks gathered to remember him.

Andy and Nico are from a book entitled Hippie.  The man with the glasses is either Burt Ward or Adam West (cannot remember!) cut from a 1960s TV/Screen magazine.  The time traveler in the middle is a woman featured in an ad for canned pineapple -- snipped from a 1933 Woman's Home Companion magazine.

Andy's after party at the old tire factory.


All Tomorrow's Parties


Friday 25 October 2013

Andy's # 1 Rule for a Successful Costume Party Was a Well Stocked Refrigerator

I had no idea what to do with this theme (even though I picked it!).  The mid-century office furniture and mini frig came from a vintage interior design magazine.  The woman perched on the desk is a found photo and the stars were in a recent ad for Macy's department store.  I purchased the Gertrude Stein image as a postcard in 2011 when I saw a fantastic show "Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories" at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco.

beethoven was a sunday painter


I'm working on assembling my partygoers, but it will be a couple days. In the meantime, here's something from my deep archives (2011).  Both Beethoven and the little dog are by Andy Warhol. The beauty is British actress Jean Simmons (Guys and Dolls, Elmer Gantry, Spartacus).

Marilyn, Mao and Dick at the Party


Warhol TV


Thursday 24 October 2013

Andy Warhol's Costume Party

My last pick for the month of October.  Ending with thoughts for the fabulous costume party I hope you are all going to this weekend or on October 31st!

Sunday 20 October 2013

Trick Or Treat

This one is from my archives...it is an "altered" cabinet card photo--it has wavy edges but I cropped them from the photo.  I have this hanging on the wall of my art studio.  I punched two grommets in the top of the card and slid a piece of black ribbon through.  Note that the "Trick or Treat" bag is dimensional and has fake candy sticking out of it.  I did a number of altered Halloween cabinet cards a couple of years ago and I've yet to put any on Etsy although I have a shop set up.  Maybe one day...

Good Luck From Folkstone


Thursday 17 October 2013

Family Portrait

I've been adding to this antique found photo since last year (believe it or not).  Initially it was just the man with the devil head and now it's all done.  Alternate title:  "The Old Folks at Home".

New Theme: "The Black Cat Was There!"

First of all, I want to compliment the creations of my fellow collagists for the past two themes.  Bravo!!

Second, in keeping with tapping the "darker" side of our creativity during this month, I have chosen a theme that is pretty wide open. Have a good time with this one and I look forward to seeing your work!

By the way, I have one more theme to pick and I am looking for someone to take over the themes for the month of November...

...any volunteers?

Sick Tricyclist


Monday 14 October 2013

Sunday 13 October 2013

Dora Duels With Her Demons

Background is from a children's book on printmaking from common materials.  The photographic profile is a found photo (it was already cut out)!  The booze bottles and clock are from various vintage magazines.  The scary mask is from a 1961 LIFE magazine article "ODD IMAGES TO TEST MINDS" about techniques used on patients at the "new" Houston State Psychiatric Institute.

I now quote Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849):

"We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss — we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness, and dizziness, and horror, become merged in a cloud of unnameable feeling."

From:  The Imp of the Perverse

Inhabited Asteroid


Wednesday 9 October 2013

down under


Background is a B&W detail from Gerhard Richter's "Night." No source available for comic book panel. Face from a film by David Lynch. Plus acrylic paint.

Monday 7 October 2013

ships that pass in the night


This was a tough challenge for me, because my horror sensibilities tend toward the explicit rather than the subtle: scary monsters, dead bodies, blood splatter, that sort of thing. So I decided to approach it by pushing all that red stuff off to the the edges of the collage.

Background from an engraving by Gustave Doré. Ghostly figures from a video installation by Gary Hill. Border is chopped-up bits from paintings by Francis Bacon, Willem de Kooning, Emil Nolde, and Pedro F. Perez.

The title is from Longfellow: "...ships that pass in the night and speak to each other in passing ... Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence."

Clapham Village

Clapham in West Sussex has long been a place of mysterious and spooky happenings!

Friday 4 October 2013

Satan's Saucer Men


London, 1940

Background is a book page showing London during the Blitz of December 1940, and that creepy moon....a diseased retina from my Basics of Opthamology book.

The Ghost of Ashburnham House, Westminster

I have a lovely book about London's magnificent architecture that I like to use in collage from time to time.  The "ghost" was a woman posing on a pedestal and found in another favorite collage resource "The Saturday Book".

In the Thicket