Paper Trumpets #10: Mummy Cream

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Mummy Cream

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Notes on this collage:

  • Happy Halloween season! I’ve been collaging with scary monster images lately. I’m thinking about putting them in our window for trick-or-treaters to enjoy.
  • The mummy comes from a book called Horror Movies, which was published in 1974. In that book, he is shown choking a poor townsfolk. I cut that unfortunate fellow out of the image (freed him with my scissors!) and made the mummy grab a cute pitcher of cream instead.
  • I have actually been holding on to this mummy for a couple of months now and trying to figure out what he could be grabbing. I kept picturing in my mind that he was reaching into a refrigerator but it took me a while to find the right size and right kind of refrigerator. I looked through several Good Housekeeping magazines before finding this wonderful 1970s Kelvinator. Look at all that food (seems heavy on the fruit).
  • This collage turned out to be bigger than my usual ones. It’s 11 x 12 inches. Usually they’re 8.5 x 11 or less.
  • This week, the Paper Trumpets spotlight shines on California collage artist Justin Angelos. His work is full of kinetic energy, bolts of ribbon-like accents, and mysterious multi-colored orbs that look like exploding asteroids. But one of my favorite elements of his work is the focus on eyeballs, which often pop out of unusual surfaces, staring directly at you the viewer, or sometimes peering at something just out of the frame. “The eyes say so much,” Angelos tells me. “When I use them in a piece it seems to bring life to the image. I like the oddity and mystery.” He recently did some collage gif work for a national Gatorade campaign and is currently working on a line of women’s scarves with some of his images digitally printed on silk. He’ll be part of a show in November at AR4T in Laguna Beach.

Kevin Sampsell is the publisher of the micropress Future Tense Books in Portland, Oregon. His books include the story collection, Creamy Bullets, the memoir, A Common Pornography, and the novel, This Is Between Us. His work has appeared in publications such as Pank, Sixth Finch, Poets & Writers Magzine, Yeti, Fairy Tale Review, Tin House, Best Sex Writing 2010, and Best American Essays 2013. More from this author →