Click image to enlarge:
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Notes on this collage:
- The base of this collage is a page from an 1895 book by explorer John Wesley Powell. The image is covered by the vintage Hollywood photograph, but you can still read the caption: Grand Canon (sic) of the Colorado, showing amphitheatre and sculptured buttes.
- The photo on top of the image is a still from a movie starring Thelma Todd and Charley Chase. Todd is the woman peeking out of the shower (She had a very interesting, short life. You should read up on her). I’m not sure who the actress in the bath is, but she has a hold of Charley Chase’s jacket. Mr. Chase’s cut-out image was actually used in my Paper Trumpets column #12. For this collage, in place of his body, I slipped in a photo of splashing water.
- Sometimes I don’t realize I’m doing something clever until later. For example, just now, I thought to myself: Splashing water in the shape of a person…woman in a bathtub…woman in a shower…hey, that’s pretty cool!
- Soundtrack while making this collage was Ultra Vivid Scene.
- A couple of my newer collages have been used by the recently relaunched Housefire website.
- One of my favorite artists, Michael Tunk, has started up FABA Collage Magazine with Indiana Rogers and Laura Tringali Holmes. I recently got the first issue, which features great work from six collagists, who go into the details of their collages piece by piece. There’s also a cool article on Hannah Hoch (I didn’t know about her Album). You can order FABA here.
- This week, the Paper Trumpets spotlight shines on the wonderful work of Martin Copertari, a British collagist who lived in Barcelona and died last month at the age of 46. With a background in film and literature (he was Doris Lessing’s assistant for over twelve years), Copertari’s collages are built from Victorian images from the nineteenth century and given a whimsical Max Ernst-type treatment. Copertari often used a gravure printing technique, which he did the old-fashioned way—by hand. In a 2012 interview with Cory Peeke in Kolaj Magazine #2, Copertari said, “I love literature and I seek to create images that can also be read like literature. I noticed during my past exhibitions that people like the old look in my work but also find the images romantic, sometimes a bit acid or disturbing but above all very often they find them funny.”
- I found this great quote by one of my favorite writers, Donald Barthelme: “The principle of collage is the central principle of all art in the twentieth century.” More from Jonathan Lethem and others in this Austin Kleon post.
