Assembrush

One thing I've learned from assemblage artists is that you can pretty much use anything to build your assemblage on.

Take Ron Pippin for example, an artist of genius proportions. He created an entire work built on a Kayak And here's one from Michael Demeng from, well you can see what he uses. Seems like you are limited only by your imagination.

So here I took an idea from a Michael Demeng workshop entitled Good Brushes Gone Bad and created 2 small assemblage pieces from used-up house paint brushes, you know the ones where the bristles are so stuck together that painting is impossible anymore. Anyone with the right sense of mind would chuck them in the bin. OK, so anyone in their right sense of mind wouldnt' chop the faces off baby dolls either! The old layers of paint create a natural start to the assemblage and I retained some of this in the work. 

Bad-Ass Baby

A Brush with Bling

Both pieces are up for exhibition this weekend in the Martakana Art Show, another fundraiser for Warkworth Wellsford Hospice at Matakana primary from Friday  24th to Monday 27th January. Come along if you are local. 

A Shrine to Rust

A competition and fundraiser for Hospice, to decorate a mannequin in whatever way you want, inspired me to make "Our Lady of the Divine Rusty Junk".

Our Lady of the Divine Rusty Junk

The body has been rusted using the technique outlined here. The elements used to embellish her were all salvaged from the Hospice rubbish pile. One man's trash ....... as Macklemore says......

Our Lady is rife with symbolism of fertility and re-birth. She is a shrine to honour the beauty that can be found in aging and decay. Rust is a beautiful mark that time leaves behind, a symbol of a good life. The repurposed junk reminds us that 'useless' is a subjective term and that everything continues to have value.

The mannequins are on display at a local shop window, and people are invited to vote. Then they will go to auction and all proceeds donated to the local hospice. Where I work. Another example of recycling I guess. 

When I made her, I had trouble getting the rust to stick to the mannequin. In the end, I painted her with gesso mixed with binder medium, then a second coat of gesso, then the rusting chemical. Finally I sprayed it with fixative spray.

 I'm not a catholic but I love the iconography of catholicism. The virgin Mary is a favourite of mine.

Not all Mums would spend their weekends drilling holes in boobs, my daughter says that's because I'm wacky, not like the other Mums. Thank goodness for that.

Why I rip dolls heads off.....

People think I'm a tad on the strange side when I tell them I rip the heads of dollies. Can't think why? No doubt those same people may be offended by my treatment of Jesus and the Madonna as well.

This latest assemblage is influenced by the Mexican Day_of_the_Dead. Dia de los Muertos, a religious holiday related to the Catholic All Saints Day, honoring those that have gone before us and celebrating their lives.

I found these small statuettes, candelabra and a doll at the hospice garage sale - another place where we remember the dead - and in typical DeMengian usage of 'inherant thingyness' put them together in this table centrepiece. The crystal in the middle has healing properties.

It is an evolving piece, I hope to have it covered with black drippy wax and spider webs in time to come. I find it infuriating that candles these days are all non-drip. I love to play with drippy wax, something quite therapeutic in that.

Eco-print Fabric Journal

Last few months I've been playing around with dyeing fabrics and paper with leaves, India Flint style. The muted salmon pinks and browns along with vintage lace and vintage found objects, old jewellry, form into a book that has an aged and worn look about it (much like myself). Here is the result, an embellished journal made entirely by hand stitching with a long-stitch binding.

What I love most about this book is the combination of recycling objects from nature with objects that are made. Creates a nice symmetry I think.

Front Cover

Back cover

Spine

Opened book

Inside pages

Page print - Eucalyptus leaves

Polyphemus

Polyphemus was one mean son of a bitch to Odysseus and his men. 

"The cyclops grabbed two of the men and bashed their heads on rocks. The remaining men cried aloud as he ate their comrades". He ate whole sheep in one bite, and tried to trap sailors in his cave (like a live supermarket for fresh meat).

But Odysseus gets even, poking the cyclops eye out with a stick after getting him drunk on wine before making his escape. 

He was one cool due, Odysseus. When the sirens sang to lure him and his sailors to the deep, he put wax in his ears and had himself tied to the mast so as not to be lured to his fateful death. Pretty resourceful really.

Anyway, here is my tribute to Polyphemus and the most awesomest-ever adventure of Odysseus. This is my most adventurest (is that a word?) assemblage shrine so far, gifted to my husband Luke for his 1/2 century.

Interesting that my biggest source of inspiration - the king kapisi of assemblaaazzzh Micheal deMeng, has just posted a blog on cyclops inspired work - the Santa Clops. I'm probably the world's biggest Scrooge when it comes to Christmas, but Michael puts back some reason for the season. 

The Making of the Tentacles, for Alberto

This is the story of the making of Polyphemus, the cyclops monster of Homer's odyssey.

Polyphemus grew from some tin foil (or aluminum foil as they say in the states), some wire, Ave's 2 part apoxie clay and a baby doll head. Some say I'm a sick puppy.

Baby's head got seperated from her body in a sad accident (ahhh poor baby). Luckily I found her abandoned cranium and resurected her, gave her a sex change and made her into He-Baby.  A builder left behind at our house, a box of these fabulous nail strips from his automatic nail gun, which I refilled with rusty screws and attached to baby's head. No longer a baby, now some sort of Punk revival dolly he became the base for Polyphemus.

But now for the tentacles...... hmmm how to make these. Alberto had an idea (lightbulb), buy some Finger tentacles from an online shop. Muy buen idea mi amigo Alberto, but not so easy to find finger tentacles in NZ. Too impatient to wait for the American post, I decided to make my own.

Here comes the clever bit. Looked on line and found a great tutorial by Propnomicon, a fellow blogger and tentacle maker extraordinaire. This gave me the basis for the idea. Fueled by the insanely talented Michael deMeng's workshop 'Mad Alchemists Guide to Assemblage', I discovered Ave's 2 part apoxy clay and ordered it up from a local taxidermist supplier.

So.......... take some strips of fencing wire and wrap with foil, bend into shape.

Roll out the Ave's clay into thin strips. Wind it around the foil and smooth over any lumps.

Stick into Punk revival Dolly head (since glued onto the top of my shrine), and add texture to the tentacles with a button or something like that.

I added an evil blue eye (Daniel Craig's), and painted it with gesso.

....added an eye patch, an earing and painted with color washes and.....Bale..... Polyphemus es finito.

This shrine was made for my husbands 50th birthday gift. Next post, I will put up some photos of the completed assemblage. 

Study is over, time for me to create

Last week I finished my final university paper for a post-grad cert (yahoo). So now no more weekends of study in front of YouTube medical videos on how to find the JVP or what a rhonchi sounds like. I spent an entire 4 days on art work and my psycke is soaring. First up, making two small artworks to donate to a fundraising exhibition for the Matakana-Omaha walkway This is an initiative from ceramacist Mike deHaan and A Fine Line Gallery. Tickets are sold for $40 each, and throughout the evening the artworks are numbered off to match the number on the tickets. So everyone gets to go home with a unique piece of local art. Great idea huh?

The brief was to make a piece around DLE size. This mini shrine is a symphony of diaxozine purple in a tin pencil case. A tiny musical scroll in a little bottle, a light bulb, a mesmerizing photograph of a woman underwater, and lots of luverly super-glue. Not sure what to call her.

My second donated piece is a fine art print of delicate wild-parsley. Quite a contradiction to black skeletons. 

This is a real buzz, first to be asked to contribute, but also to be a part of this amazing community initiative. Tickets are sold out but you can just turn up on Saturday night to be part of the fun, buy a raffle ticket, have a glass of wine and meet some neat people.