studio notes

Self Portraits and Junk Mail

I'm almost afraid to show you today's post, as now you will see how truly bad my mind wanders at times. For those of you that are in envy of my organizational and time management skills in the studio, here's some redemption.

A group I belong to has requested that each member create a self portrait art quilt --- one that is a head shot and that is recognizable as me. I totally dislike creating art quilts that are representational, and self portraits are at the very top of the dreaded list of representational art that I dislike. However, it is a group that I enjoy and I am a board member, so I decided to give it a try.


First I set the timer on my camera and started taking self portrait photos. Yuck, double yuck. Next idea --- gather things that I like or that tell a little about me. Out came a copy of Quilting Arts magazine, and to the floor dropped the subscription card insert. I remembered that somewhere I had seen an artist who created a piece of artwork from one of these cards, so I decided to try that concept (another recycle, reuse project). So I started cropping one of the self portrait photos until I got it down to a part that I could live with displaying to the public, changed it to grayscale, and lightened it up considerably. Then I printed it on the subscription card insert. Turned out fairly cool!

So I dug out another magazine and looked for the insert in it. You know every magazine has these PITA cards. This magazine happened to be Dwell, so I decided to go through the same process, only with a tree photograph. I love this one!

By this time, I'm excited and feel like I've discovered a new raw material for collages, but of course I am way off track on my self portrait project, and that is how it stayed for the rest of the day --- playing with photographs and overprinting them on junk mail and totally ignoring any idea of a self portrait.