Obsessions

Admit it!


We all have them.


Obsessions!


Oh yes you do! Those things you just love and have to have but are usually completely impractical. Oh we all justify them, sometimes well too, but really could you live without them, yes but why would you!

I thought I'd show you one of mine.

I love old photographs! I know many of you do too. How often do we pull them out to use as grist in the makings of our art? Quite often these days I think if you look around. I love faces and people. Portraits particularly but I will opt for landscapes and still life as well if the other isn't around. Portraits painted or snapped on film, I'm not fussy, I love them all.


Usually I like to guess at the people in them. Who were they? What are they thinking? What were their lives like? What is their relationship to the others in the picture? I like to make up lives and stories for them.

Recently I came across this little beauty and thought I'd share some of it with you all. It is an old antique Victorian album containing lots of photographs, mostly from around the late 1800's and early 1900's. It is not small as it measures approximately 12"x 9" and is about 2.5" wide. When I saw it I fell for it's charm and the obsession bug kicked in. You know the one that screams mine, mine, mine at you and refuses to let you leave the store without it! Oh, I argued with myself about the price, haggling internally, poo pooed at it and spun tales of how it will feed my artistic inspiration for decades to come etc; but in truth I must admit that it is really just that this is my own personal obsession. I purchased it and took it home and have gazed adoringly at it almost everyday since. LOL! From its covers wonderful textures to the gilt on each and every page to the gaze of those who inhabit the pages, I am lost...


The front cover...



Embossed leather, it feels wonderful. If you're a texture peep it will draw you in right here.



The spine, yumm!

and without even opening a page, I was in love with the back cover...

The most amazing cutting and embossing ever! It feels wonderful!!!


(Told you all I was obsessed, LOL!)


So I suppose I should give you a glimpse at the lives inside the covers too!


Isn't she wonderful!

Don't you love the artwork on the pages and the foxing!

Does it make you wonder who they were too?



No hands touching there, I wonder why?


Another gorgeous decorative page...

and then there's the girls...

I love that one of them is sort of peeping away candidly at the camera from the side.

What was she thinking?


And then there's these lovelies.

Lots more of course but I don't want to bore you all completely.

Think I'll just close it up now or I will be here dreaming all day!

What obsessions do you have?

If Walls Could Talk

Confessions of a blog hopper!
I am always jumping from one blog to another, sometimes I admit, I get lost and can't find my way back to where I was, or worse see something I love, close a page then can't find my way there again! Do you do this too? Terribly frustrating! I am slowly becoming more disciplined about my blog hopping and bookmarking pages and sites I love so I can refind my way there again, but I still madly blog hop, driving my family nuts as they ask, "Are you downloading pages again", all the time:)! Umm, yup, that's me, sorry to the obsessive online gamers at my house but raspberries to you I say! In my mad dash from place to place I frequently find myself returning to Le Divan Fumoir Bohemien ( If you haven't caught this wonderful blog, then do. It's full of the most incredible fragments of interesting things!) So while there in recent weeks , an amazing piece of texture caught my eye. Paper and resin, brittle from the passage of time. Okay, I'm hooked just from this alone. LOVE texture! But vintage texture!!! Oooooo! The piece was all about this fantastic house built from paper. Okay so, a quick blog hop over to Rockport, Massachusetts (don't you just love the spelling challenges presented by some words!!!), and it's a quick spin through the paper house. Walls, furniture all made from paper and resin, how interesting. (Read that as brain ticking starting up). Alright, so now I'm thinking about the paper house and remembering a news article I saw sometime ago about how many years ago (that's centuries past), folks in the U.K. would bury sentimental items of loved ones in the walls of their homes. Baby shoes, clothes etc, and now workmen called in to do repairs are turning up all manner of strange items in the walls. Now, I have been watching with interest Seth Apter's Disintigration Collaboration where artists are making up bundles and leaving them out to the ravages of the elements for a period of time, only to reclaim them and produce something using their altered pieces in an artwork. Great stuff too Seth, can't wait to see more of this! (If you have been under a rock somewhere and haven't caught this one, then jump to it and check it out, it's a must see!) So with all of this churning around in the noggin, the beginings of an idea. Keep with me here, we are going somewhere albeit slowly. The birth of a creative idea. What would your walls reveal about you? What would you imagine someone putting in there, preserving for time? What could be hidden from view, secreted away in those spaces? Precious things, posessions, secrets waiting in time. Ahh, so here is the idea. Following along with the disintigration line, what would happen if there had been a fire? What would be lost or revealed?





And so...







the layers peeled away...

Under the wallpaper, inside the walls, what was hidden is now revealed.






a secret love...







a choice made...

a love lost.


Under the wallpaper, inside the walls the fire reveals, pictures of a love forsaken. Letters hidden within the walls, kept close in the secret heart of the home.




The piece in its entirety.




Layers of papers, glued and colour washed, then covered in dimensional magic. Now for the fun part, burned. Yes that's right, bubbled and blistered to form the texture of the piece. I had so much fun with this, burning the paper and dimensional magic to my hearts content. The family constantly checking to see I wasn't personally alight, (or at least the house!). I think I must be some sort of closet arsonist, LOL! Anyway, after the burning... lots of embossing in black, red and gold! More burning!!! (said with glee!!!). I seem to be on some sort of upswing lately, everything rolling along so well. I am pretty pleased with this one (just in case you are in any doubt. LOL). Here's another glimpse at the textures, click away for a closer look.

Now I think I might have to contemplate the issue of water and how to apply it. (Just to put out all the fires you know)!