In 2015 I did a collaborative art project with my dear friend Uta Lenk, who lives in Germany. We each prepared six sets of fabric stuff -- one envelope to me, an identical envelope to her. The envelopes contained three or four bits and pieces of fabric, lace, cord, maybe a button or bead, and miscellaneous things we found in our respective studios. We exchanged the envelopes and then each month we made a fabric collage that had to use everything in the envelope plus whatever else we might want to add. For coherence, I chose to stitch all my collages onto a neutral linen background, which in turn was stitches to the deep gray mat board.
We had fun doing the project, but on my part I would say that only four or five of the twelve rose to the level of art. As with so many experiments in a new method or procedure, it takes a while to find your way. But three of them seemed good enough to put in frames for the new show at PYRO Gallery.
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| Gold Star |
Only one hitch -- Uta and I had made our collages to fit onto 8x12" mat board, and I couldn't find frames in that size. So I got 9x12 frames and eked out the width with strips of colored paper.
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| Pig Newton |
If I were starting from scratch I'd prefer the mat board the same size as the frame, but the stripes do add a jaunty air, especially when all three collages are hung together.
By the way, I don't like to put fabric under glass, so I put the collages into the frames naked. I know there are some drawbacks to this approach in that the work can get dusty, but I didn't want to pop for expensive shadowbox frames that would keep the glass forward off the 3-D collages. I hope it works out well.
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| Slick Dude |
If you'd like to see all our collages from that project, click here.
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