I’ve written about UK based artist Anthony Zinonos a couple of times, but that was way back in 2009… clearly, it’s time for a new post.  As you probably know, I am a ridiculously huge fan of collage, especially found image collage. A scrap of perfectly chosen paper, a few strategic snips from a stack of old magazines, and voila, you have an entirely new story being told on a field of canary yellow! Anthony’s work is so simple, and so clever. Oh, and not only is his work simple and clever, but he always has the best titles – that last piece {on the field of canary yellow!} is called … “justGOtalkTOher” … ha! ♥

ps. So I think you know that I’m working on a couple of books with Chronicle Books {it’s killing me not to tell you what they’re about… soon though!}. The first one is almost finished, and I’m knee-deep into the second, which just so happens to have a wonderful foreword written by one Mr. Anthony Zinonos! YAY!

Yep. I turn 40 today (when the hell did that happen?), and when a girl turns 40 she really wants some cake. In my case, however, I’ve had my heart set on some cake from one of my favorite artists, Martha Rich, for years! Well, today my birthday wish came true…

Look what I got! An original Martha Rich vanilla cake with gooey chocolate icing. Yum! Only a slice though … I am 40 now … I can’t get away with having a whole cake like back in the good old days {Thanks Martha – I absolutely love it! And thank you so much to my parents who commissioned it! xo}

And with that, I’m off to play hooky for the day – see you tomorrow!

Layers and layers and layers of goodness. This is the collage, and or drawing, and or paper-cutting, and or printmaking work of California based artist Elise Wehle. I came across her work for the first time a few weeks ago when I was judging the UncommonGoods art contest… one look at her portfolio and we knew we had a winner!  You can see why, right?!  She’ll be selling prints through UncommonGoods, but boy or boy, I sure would like to see an original up-close n’ personal! Beautiful. Speaking of beautiful, read her artist statement… it’s perfect:

“I make the art I do to pull me away from the increasingly digital world that surrounds me. Every day I spend so much time in front of a glowing screen that sometimes I forget I possess five bodily senses and not just one or two. Making art makes me conscious of my hands again, and all of my work requires time-intensive, redundant movements that remind me that not everything is as instantaneous as a click of a mouse. By weaving together paper, cutting lines, and folding shapes, I manipulate drawings, photos, and prints to create new landscapes for me to explore.”

Oh my word. These intricate paper collages are  the work of California based artist David Adey. He uses fashion magazines, and found google images as the starting point for his work… and then laser cuts, and craft-punches them into zillions of tiny fragments. He then meticulously pins each bit onto foam board, creating stunningly beautiful, and insanely elaborate mandalas. I’m pretty sure I’ll never look at a lipstick ad the same way again. Sigh. Gorgeous.

{via the artful desperado}

Gasp! I’m a little bit lost for words {which is rare for me}. This is just so beautiful, and oh so meticulous. This work is from the paper-folding series, Between the Folds, by Chilean born, London based artist Francisca Prieto. These sweet little birds are from pages of “A History of British Birds, 1870″, but now they are catalogued in an entirely new way… a delicate origami, tiny hidden window kind of way! LOVE. And there’s so much more where those little birds came from! Francisca folds just about everything – ornamental designs from 1892, British botanicals, some very very old maps:

I already said , Gasp!, right? ♥

Look what I found yesterday! Delicate, and wonderfully weird, drawings by American artist Marie Gardeski. Giraffes eating what I assume is coral, a monolithic head named ‘Ethel’… oh, oh! … and my favorite title in the bunch, “keep it down back there” {can you guess which one that is? yep, the camel with the kid humps, of course!} ♥

Happy weekend! Today, collage artist Hollie Chastain and I are pretending to be at Aretha Frankenstein’s in Chattanooga TN. Ready for a giant stack o’ pancakes? Of course you are!

JC: hi hollie! oh my word, this food looks good! what are you gonna have? any recos?

HC: oh man, that’s the big question. there is usually a bit of a wait here, because it is amazing, so i have time to think and fret. i’m thinking the sodbuster omelette this morning with coffee and orange juice. but if you’ve never had their pancakes, then you have to try those.

JC: is this your usual brunch place? your kids must LOVE it here!

HC: they do love it! i don’t bring them as often as i should. is that awful? i think it is. brunch is usually my recovery, quiet, down-time with the husband or a friend after a night out when the kids are at the grandparents so they miss out. now i feel bad and i’ll have to bring them this weekend for some yummy goodness.

JC: you better! they might smell the pancakes on you when you get home! speaking of kids, you sometimes have children in your collages – are those your kids? do they represent your kids, or are they totally unrelated?

HC: some of them are my kids but i’ve only done that intentionally maybe once or twice. a few times i have unintentionally worked them into compositions. i don’t notice it at first until someone points out that it looks just like one or the other of them.

JC: so when we’re finished, what are you going to do for the rest of the weekend? art stuff? family stuff? both?

HC: i think that all of my time is a little bit of both. during the week i work until family stuff pulls me away and it’s the opposite on the weekends. i just got a fresh and wonderful batch of books so i know i won’t be able to stay away from the studio all day. i can feel those covers calling me!

JC: oh, your book covers…. i LOVE your book covers!!! do you have collages planned in your mind and then you go looking for the covers, or will finding a good one spark an idea for a piece?

HC: thanks! i really love making them. i never plan them ahead of time. when i find one i like i sit down with my scraps and move things around until something feels perfect. most of the time i will first decide what i can’t bear to cover up on the original cover and that is the beginning of the shape of the composition.

JC: where do you find all of those old books, and images that make their way into your collages?

HC: any thrift store or antique store usually has a book section and within that section a box or shelf or bin full of scrappy books. old textbooks are the best. the paper quality is heavy and sturdy because it had to survive years of constant manhandling by children. they also have the best doodles! i always try and find things that are at least a little bit falling-apart-ish but still have sturdy, straight covers. i remember being in a tiny little shop, in a tiny house, outside of nashville and  i found a ratty old newspaper from the 60s. as i was purchasing my stack i patiently listened to the owner describe in detail how to steam off the price sticker – i couldn’t manage to tell him i was going to disassemble it for the parts.

JC: ha! probably best not to break it to him! ahhh, thanks so much for having brunch with me hollie! let me get the cheque ; )

HC: you are too kind. thanks, this has been super fun!

Well, clearly American artist Richard Vergez has a thing for billowing smoke… hm, and it appears that I do too! His portfolio is actually full of all sorts of amazing collages don’t have smoke in them, but there was just something about these that called my name! Oh, and there was also this:

♥

Drawings? No.  Prints? No.  Embroidery on paper? Yes.

I think I’ve written about every series that New York based artist Emily Barletta has ever done. And every time I think “Wow. That’s amazing. I can’t get more jealous than this.” … and then, she gets me again. Look at this work?! Embroidery on paper. Crazy, detailed, meticulous, perfectly chosen bits of colored thread {how does she get them to almost fade in and out of each other?!} working together to create beautifully bizarre mounds and hills that make me say, “Wow. That’s amazing. I can’t get more jealous than this.”

ps. Emily is one of the artists in my book, and I could not be more thrilled, and honored, that she is involved!

Whoa. I was already jealous of Jaime Derringer for being the founder of the amazingly fantastic blog, Design Milk, and that should really be enough, but then I found a bunch of her drawings… gorgeous, elaborate, knotty, brain-bending, squiggly drawings! LOVE! I don’t know about you, but no matter what kind of pen I use, my drawings do not look like this. Weird. {ps. I just have to say, out loud, how much that white ink on black paper is killing me!!! That’s all.}