Through his dynamic structures, Kielnhofer invites the viewer to an intellectual debate and to philosophical and intellectual stimulation. This work is based on philosophical thinking patterns that are complementary with social impact through application and interaction. Variables such as materials and urban positioning, give the work of art a unique versatility and applicability.

Whether moving, static, bright, swimming, driving, busy or isolated freestanding – the action itself defines the fine line to use artistic design, or art-oriented design to use. ”The moment you try the artwork in my thoughts and words to capture, one realizes that this task almost limitless variations, offers viewpoints and approaches. Kielnhofer redeemed by shape and material, resulting in an avalanche of application functionality and solutions / results on different levels of perception.” Artist Manfred Kielnhofer will appear in the upcoming issue 9 of EYES IN Magazine.

Visit Kielnhofer.at/blog to see more of his contemporary design works.

Images provided by Kielnhofer.at/blog and Technik Design

Frank Lloyd Wright, Edgar J. Kaufmann House, “Fallingwater”

Frank Lloyd Wright, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY 1943

Frank Lloyd Wright, Arizona State Capital, “Oasis”, Phoenix, AZ

Prints are available for purchase. Visit 1000museums.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Visit StuntKid’s website to see more of his incredible artwork.

By Lorette C. Luzajic

Where has the year gone? Today is already the tenth of January, the week already a blur. I was hoping “focus” would magically come a little easier for me this year, but I concede already that its unlikely. Focus on what? My poetry? My compositional collages? The wordplay series I just started in late 2011? The course I started in economics? The marketing program? The abstract work I’ve become addicted to? Or the sixty-two short story ideas, or the homage to Jennifer Tilly, or the political commentary? Or the upcoming photography monograph, or the various tributes to human industry and progress, or the promotion of freedom and freedom of expression, or the arts blog?

New collage – Red and turquoise composition by Lorette C. Luzajic

Sigh.

I thought I’d simplify things by making a list of goals for the year. When I reached item 172, I crumpled it up and threw it away.

Some may envy the “unbridled enthusiasm” with which I face life and wish they also found everything interesting. Others may cluck about quality over quantity and they would be right, too.

Perhaps even more crucial than practice and persistence is “building a brand” and “finding your voice.” The vast majority of successful people and businesses find their niche or style and build that platform. Imagine if Mozart had spent half of his creative energy on corset design or animal husbandry. It would be disastrous if Coca Cola added milkshakes to their arsenal. Mark Rothko started with various experiments in painting, and then he spent the rest of his life painting giant blocks of colour. Ed Hopper became synonymous with American realism- he did not show abstracts one moment and write poems about golf the next.  Would filmmaker Woody Allen still be with us if he’d splintered his time working on operas, sculptures, and toll painted birdhouses?

Untitled – Mark Rothko

What if Nike decided “Just Do It” should also apply to baking banana cupcakes or making psychedelic stained glass mandalas? Would romance novel magnate Danielle Steel be famous if she had kept herself busy writing etymology textbooks, haiku, and sci-fi screenplays? Would Ray Bradbury have the name he has if he had branched out into Chinese brush painting or tap dance?  What if Joe DiMaggio had also focused his prowess on yoga, football, and darts?

The wisdom in specializing is clear. How can you be good at anything if you are spreading yourself so thin? How can you develop beyond rudimentary skills if you are scattered in so many directions? As the saying goes, “jack of all trades, master of none.”

Still, a person may have deep passion for many streams and generate endless ideas. For some of us, thought processes are not linear but spin off of associations, and the mind is excited by and curious about a vast array of topics. Such a mind hungers for more, even as it is overwhelmed by its own output.

Some variety is the spice of life, of course, for everyone, and that’s why we are genuinely enriched when we try new things and have new experiences. Everyone longs for an occasional adventure, a twist, a new song in their iTunes library. We develop a more profound understanding of the world and give depth to our character and personality by taking risks and checking out new hobbies or hearing another person’s political perspective. We are not one dimensional. Our relationships and experiences feed and inspire our work.

Perhaps the personality who refuses to focus and get down to business is no different from the rest. Could he simply lack discipline and concentration? You may know someone with this mind- or be someone with this mind- and have been pathologized. If so, the words “manic” and “attention deficit disorder” probably mean something to you. And you probably hate those words. They are typecasting in and of themselves- a concept, as we have just seen, that is alien to your very nature. Can more stereotypes really offer any constructive insight? Can the debate over whether artists are predisposed to madness really illuminate anything more than the fact that some artists are prone to eccentricity or intensity, and some aren’t?

Most people with constant torrential activity in their minds would like to be more successful, and some would give three teeth to focus on one thing at a time and acquire a less cluttered brain. But the only fate worse than this kind of mind is not having it. Most of us spinning tops are terrified of limitations. I thrive on colours and patterns and making new things and reading sixteen books at a time. I don’t want to give up my deep immersion and engagement with life. I do not want to stop exploring and growing and I do not want to give up photography and painting to “concentrate on my poetry.”

I tried to “niche” myself a million times- as a poet, as a tarot reader, as a meat writer, as a collagist, as a mental health writer, as a Michael Jackson blogger. I loved all of these things. With my usual head-first plunges and my voracious research, I became quite knowledgeable about esoteric history, about  psychology and  pharmacology. I learned how the North American vegetarian movement was born not out of love of animals but out of bizarre, prudish, bowel-obsessed cereal sellers who believed that meat inflamed lust by compacting in the bowels and pressuring the sexual organs. No, I’m not making this up. It was born by the same people who told you that you’d get hairy palms or go blind. Dr Kellogg cared no whit about little fluffies- rather, he wanted to deny children nourishment and sell his cereal to keep them sexless. He advised that impure children should have their wing wangs pinned- yes pinned- to make any natural blood flow painful. Girls were not so lucky. They were to be castrated with carbolic acid.

But I digress. Which is the point. All of these fascinating, infuriating, interesting snippets of the world, of history, of our story, of my story, are like puzzle pieces. And each and every new area of subject matter or exploration that I get into adds insight into the others. There is nonstop “clicking” in my brain, as ideas and chronologies snap together. Everything is connected.

Not every artist with this type of mind is “mentally ill,” of course, but I don’t mind facing the facts about my ADD and manic-depressive disorder. Doing so was like growing up three decades worth in a single “a-ha moment.” The exhaustion of the spinning mind often forces itself into rest with the other extreme- depression and complete inability to act. At best, this dark place yields a few morbid poems, but any insights found in this empty hell are difficult to bring to fruition. Until the switch reverses, of course. Reining in that chaos can mean tremendous productivity, but unfortunately the rush is not always a ticket to paradise.

Accepting the stark reality of these cycles and stabilizing them to become functional is essential to real growth. But it’s also true that diagnostic vocabulary assumes everything is unhealthy or counterproductive- the very words “mental illness” reflect negative notions. This is, of course, because no one is looking for a cure or diagnosis for the best parts of themselves. These parts merit no terminology in pathology. But I’ve worked hard to face reality and that means facing positive reality, too. I accept the confusion, loose ends, and impaired focus of “attention deficit disorder.” But I also like to think of it as “attention surplus.” Indeed, it’s a more accurate descriptive.

Yes, organization is more difficult, internally and in my environment. Emotions are near the surface. But that’s because there is so much going on. It was imperative to my very survival that I confront my extremes, but I don’t identify with illness or think of myself as sick. I think in terms of staying healthy. I’ve often used the words “mental is-ness” to express the state of affairs. Once I wrote that depression teaches us the truth about the world, and mania protects us from the grim reality. I’m no longer sure that this is the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but it’s part of it.

Today I also see the gorgeous gift of my particular temperament. We all struggle with something, and those with focused, precise vision and resulting clarity may sometimes wish to see things in different ways, or to feel more. But deciding to water and weed one’s own lawn rather than see the other’s grass as greener is the only key to contentment and to reality. The happiest, most interesting souls do not strive to be Michael Jackson or Bill Gates or Marilyn Monroe. They take inspiration from their greats to become “the best me I can be.” No one can be as beautiful as Marilyn; no one can as witty as Oscar Wilde; no one can be as contemplative as Thomas Moore. No can be as funny or smart as you, either, or as you as you. To paraphrase Wilde, be yourself: all the other good parts are already taken.

The whirlwind of my mind has always been there. If you jet back thirty years, you would find the same girl, a melancholy little child given to bouts of motory talkativeness. And you would find her in the Niagara Falls public library, where she played hooky from school because school didn’t have enough topics or go fast enough. The girl read the usual stuff about serial killers, aliens, and the Loch Ness monster. She also read about bread dough crafts and about fish; she read about Greek theatre and bullfighting, about how the search for spices influenced exploration and trade routes; she read the Bible and she read about the Atlantic slave trade, and poems by Langston Hughes and Rod McKuen. “My dog likes oranges, but he’ll eat apples, too, he goes where the smiles go,” was a line she especially liked and still remembers. The girl wrote her own poems, too, constantly, and made booklet “reports” with illustrations on these and other topics. Nothing was commissioned at school. She simply couldn’t stop herself.

And she can’t stop herself now.

The crumpled lists are piled on the floor. My efforts at “streamlining” have already been defeated by the muchness of me.

But as I sit confounded by my plans of restraint and refinery, I continue to come to terms with a most valuable truth. I have decided I’ll have far more success embracing my temperament rather than working against the grain. Moving all of my “areas” under one umbrella last year was the beginning of this admission and acceptance. The title I chose was exactly descriptive and also revealing- “Idea Fountain.” My efforts to close down all my blog satellites and move them under the Idea Fountain blog umbrella left me unsure of how I should focus the blog. Art? Collages? Book reviews? News on freedom of expression? I found the heart of the thing- indeed, of myself- when I added the tagline, “the insatiable curiousity of artist and writer Lorette C. Luzajic.”

Though many icons excel because of their focus and singular passion, there are other spinning tops from whom we can learn about management, coping, and ways to fit a surplus of inspiration into one lifetime. Whether these figures are clinically manic or not is not for me to decide: here I am using the word manic with reverence for the power of their creativity and supersonic energy.

Sir Winston Churchill

One such hero is Sir Winston Churchill. Before age twenty, he had set off to fight tyranny in Sudan and Cuba. He collected medals swiftly in youth as he collected titles over his lifetime: lieutenant-colonel, MPP, President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, First Lord of the Admiralty, commander of the sixth battalion, Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, Chancellor of the Exchequer, etc. Most know he was famed as an orator and speechwriter, and that he worked as a journalist and historian- but few know that he wrote some forty books, some of them four volumes long. Then there were the copious letters, essays, and some short stories.  He also took up painting at the age of forty, and found time to create some 500 works before his death. Oh, and he was the Prime Minister of England who took down the Nazis.

One of Madonna’s talents

Another kind of power-horse has been as loved and as loathed and as judged as Churchill. But she will never hang her head in humiliation. Forget it. Madonna’s got work to do. So what if people whisper snidely about her less than stellar acting or directing abilities? If I had the chance to direct a film or act in it, I would do it for the experience, no matter my skills. Among a million other things, I once apprenticed for a day with an exterminator for the same reason, and found it delightful to slaughter bedbugs and roaches. I would jump even faster to work on a musical with Antonio Banderas, trust me. Madonna is a dancer, choreographer, marketing mastermind, business owner, showgirl, clothing designer, AIDs advocate, anti-African-poverty advocate, sex symbol, model, children’s book writer, kabala guru, mother, and yoga pretzel. Love her or hate her, you can’t stop her.

One of thousands of anatomy studies by Da Vinci

Maybe it’s for the better that Ed Hopper or Coca Cola stick to what they do best because the world would be diminished without their unique contributions. But it’s a good thing Leonardo da Vinci didn’t try to explore just one thing. The scientist, painter, architect, musician, inventor, cartographer, botanist, geologist, anatomist, engineer, sculptor, writer, and mathematician is the epitome of “unquenchable curiousity,” with which he has been described. The Mona Lisa painter’s fertile imagination dreamed up countless technologies that eventually came to pass. Solar power, the calculator, the helicopter, and a machine for testing the strength of wire are just a few of his thousands of conceptions. Leonardo made great use of reason and logic, rare qualities among thinkers of his day, but his mind also illustrates the exponential free association thinking patterns of the spinning top. The constant digression and tangents inherent in this quality churns and generates ideas from seemingly disparate thoughts. In seeking inspiration or solutions, teachers or organizations often have “brainstorming” exercises. The very nature of these sessions is to encourage dialectic thought and try to find unseen connections. Some find such games fun and others find them frustrating, but the word “brainstorm” is actually incredibly astute. Da Vinci must have been in a permanent state of brainstorm.

One example is how his obsessive hunger to study anatomy and the subsequent medical knowledge he imparted to us all was triggered during anatomy learning in his art classes. Fascination struck, and never one to skim the surface, Da Vinci decided he wanted to, well, get to the heart of the matter. So he got permission to dissect human corpses. I understand why he had to this. I was given a chance to visit a medical morgue a couple years ago, with a medical student friend who was allowed to bring guests to the seminar. Precisely because I am extremely squeamish about fluids and flesh, I had to do it. I forced myself to go. And then I watched as the instructors showed us over a dozen dead bodies, showed dissections and metal knees and how the face peels off of a head. I held a human brain in my hands. It was disgusting and wonderful. Though sadly I lack the genius of Da Vinci and contributed nothing to medical advancement because of this experience, it was nonetheless a moment of a lifetime.

Andy Warhol says it straight up.

There are countless whose creativity bounds in many directions. Andy Warhol, known for prolific work that mimicked new mass production trends of the market, was also a photographer, writer, maker of hundreds of films (most short but one of 25 hours), business man, hoarder, et al. Goethe was a poet, novelist, playwright, natural philosopher, diplomat and civil servant. Cicero was a statesman, lawyer, lawyer, linguist, humanist, republican, political theorist, prose stylist, letterist, translator, constitutionalist, philosopher, politician and philosopher. Thomas Jefferson was a philosopher, author, lawyer, architect, musician, naturalist, botanist, inventor, engineer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist.

It is increasingly clear that I will never, ever, niche or be satisfied with just one form of creativity or with one life to live. I’m on fire. This has indeed been a challenge to market, of course, but not nearly as challenging as trying to become someone else. And not nearly as futile, because after decades of trying to fit into impossible constraints, I realize I never will.  I can’t. Isn’t chasing a limitation the real definition of insanity?

View some of Lorette C. Luzajic on Youtube or visit her at www.ideafountain.ca.

You can see more vintage postcards on this Flickr.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Where did you grow up? and where do you currently reside?

I grew up in Tazewell, Virginia. It’s a small town in the southwest corner of the state. My wife and I have been traveling around for school and work, but we’re back in Virginia, not too far from where I grew up. We live on a farm, in the mountains. We’re keeping bees, and we’ve been planting apple trees, Asian pears, pawpaws, blueberries, plums, cherries . . . It’s good to be home!

Ductshaha

What influenced you as a child?

Curiosity and stubbornness mostly. And my parents. I had very supportive parents. They both taught science in the public schools, and they valued creativity and independent thinking.

What was the first thing you remember drawing as a child?

I was named after John James Audubon. My mother’s always been a devoted bird watcher. As a child I loved looking at reproductions of Audubon’s work. I was a nerdy little kid who loved the natural world. We had a couple of books that weren’t quite double-elephant-folio-size, more single-sheep-folio-size. Still a lot of fun to look through. I copied every single page, many times. I was also a Charles Schulz fan. The earliest drawings I remember were mash-ups of Peanuts characters with Audubon’s birds and animals.

Explosion

You have M.A. in English and B.A. in History…are you a self taught artist? (Please explain how you came to realize you wanted to be an artist.)

I don’t have art training. I’m a librarian by training. The need to make art blindsided me. I started drawing shortly after Mary and I got married in 1998.  I’ve drawn probably ever day since then. I think I tapped an obsessive vein. If I have to choose a label, I guess “self-taught” fits.

Your paintings have a doodle-like quality about them, do you have a set “design” in mind when starting a painting – or does it take on a life of it’s own?

Any given piece begins with a shell, just an outline of the drawing’s central forms. From there I fill it in.  The filling-in process is “doodly,” I guess.  “Intuitive” may also describe it. I certainly love filling up space with color and shapes, and I welcome mistakes. I integrate them happily. In both subject matter and the way I approach technique, I like art making best when my hand just does its thing and my mind is elsewhere. Recently as I draw I’ve been listening to audiobooks.

Meteor

Where do your ideas come from? Describe your creative process when getting ready to start on a piece.

It’s a stew of observations about the world and my own psychological muck. The current piece is also always directly related to its predecessor. Any time I’m working on a drawing I’m always looking for a loose thread I can follow in a subsequent piece. Ideally I want every drawing to have lots of loose threads.

In The Caribbean Walrus – what mediums did you use?

Ink, colored pencil, acrylic, and collage. I used two kinds of collage elements: those I’ve created myself  (old pieces cut up and reused, as well as new pieces created specifically for the piece) and found sources (recently old family photographs, college yearbooks from the 1930s, my childhood stamp collection, and science books for children from the 1960s and 1970s).

The Caribbean Walrus

Which is your favorite piece you have done and why?

I don’t have one. I enjoy looking at older work to pick up where I left off or to reuse something for a new piece. I’m always looking for those loose threads.

Wish

How long did it take you to complete An Institutionalist Stronghold? Can you explain this piece? And…are those teeth depicted?

Three weeks or so.

An Institutionalist Stronghold

I can’t explain the piece.  In making art (and looking at art) I value ambiguity, intuition, skepticism, mystery, play . . . As a librarian I can hand out explanations all day; as an artist I’m a little cagier.

Regarding the “teeth” figures: I’ve called them Asterisk or Asterisk Man (as in “Piltdown Man” or “Nebraska Man”). They could be teeth, or ghosts, maybe not. I know some things about them. They’re flat as flounders. They appear to be armless, but they do in fact have arms. The Asterisk are either observers, their arms held insouciantly behind their backs.  Or they’re prisoners, their arms bound behind their backs. I never know which one they are from piece to piece, or even within the same piece. I don’t know. I do know they have arms, and probably hands; I’m not sure how many fingers.  They don’t have feet.  They’re sexless too.  I’m not sure how they reproduce, though I’ve been told transdifferentiation has something to do with it.

Asterisk Man

Who are your favorite artists?

Mose Tolliver, David Shrigley, Malcolm Mckesson, Max Ernst, Albert Louden, Chris Hipkiss, Francois Burland, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Domenico Zindato, Christine Sefolosha, Philip Guston, Francis Picabia, Frida Kahlo, Saul Steinberg, Walker Evans, Rafael Ferrer, Tony Fitzpatrick, Jim Nutt, James Ensor, Kara Walker, Jon Serl, Raymond Pettibon, David Humphrey, Arturo Herrera, Jim Woodring, many many . . .

If you could spend the day with any artist living or dead, who would it be? What would hope to gain from the experience?

17,300 years ago in Lascaux. To be at the beginning . . . and maybe pick up some tips on hunting mammoth!

Trunks and Suitcases

What is the most interesting critique you’ve heard or read about your artwork?

A couple years ago Gerry Mak at Lost at E Minor said,  “If Joan Miro had spent time in Africa and set up shop in rural New Jersey, his work might look something like Cromer’s.”  Good golly.  If Mak’s still selling, I’m buying.  I’ll take that comment any day.

Loeno17

What is your greatest ambition as an artist?

To keep working. Maybe find a cave on the property somewhere.

Describe yourself in 5 words.

I had to ask my wife. She gave me five words: “Pretty much Scorpio straight up.”

What was the last book you read?

The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell

What are you currently working on?

Little drawings, lots of little drawings.

Do you have any upcoming shows?

I have work in the current show at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore.  “All Things Round” will be up until September 2012.

What type of advice would you give to future budding artists?

I’m not really one to give advice.  If I were cornered though I’d say, “Life is zooming by. Stop talking to me and get to work.”

Visit JJ Cromer’s website to see more of his amazing works. In his Valley Fill Gallery, you can see why he was mentioned in the same instance as Joan Miro.

A color version of the trees above, is available as wallpaper for your iphone at Poolga. Visit Rosie Gainsborough’s website to see more of her work.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you’re curious how this video was made, check out the Making of Pelican:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Credits:

Director: David Wilson
Producer: Tamsin Glasson

This animation was for Kylar Loya’s Senior Project at the School of the Museum of Fine Art in Boston (2010), featuring music by Designer Drugs, Crass, and Adult. It’s in-your-face trippy. Check it out…

Click here to view the embedded video.

The characters and backgrounds were hand drawn and traditionally animated, then scanned in, then colored in Photoshop. After Effects were used for the final composite.

Jenni originally from Finland, works in mixed media, combining watercolor, ink, hand drawn type and digital elements, which are inspired by Scandinavian design and nature. She received her degree from the Art Institute at Bournemouth, England.

Here are her new Christmas illustrations…

Christmas Delights Tin

You can follow Jenni Saarenkylä Illustrations on Facebook or visit her blog JenniDraws to keep updated on new artworks.

The cute owl art prints by Juri Romanov are drawn by hand with a calligraphy feather and Indian ink then digitally enhanced.

These and many others are available at the Orange Optimist Etsy store.

Spider Dreaming

This piece comes in Limited Edition of 40, hand signed & numbered by Greg Craola Simkins. Visit I’mScared for details.

Contemporary Illustration from the Land of Booze and Blondes

Hailing from The Netherlands, his pieces represent classic Dutch design aesthetic.

The Caravaners Spring

Pattern

Untitled

Flow Festival

Visit Santtu Mustonen’s website to see more of his fantastic graphic creations.

Each painting depicts an episode in a narrative of androgenous youth encountering each other on a remote Greek island. They depict a time of love before sexuality, with the nude youths, occasionally shrouded in sheepskins, romping playfully about the teal and tan landscape. In one work, a youth drags a dead albatross across an expanse, in another, the last in the series, the two figures come together in ecstasy, forever changing their innocent, idyllic world.

The exhibition runs through February 4, 2012.

Available for a mere $20 at Society6. Visit Luke Ramsey’s website to see more of his work.

Be that as it may, we happened upon these bad boys and couldn’t find them sexier. We deem them downright cutting-edge design. (No pun intended.)

These Pure Black Knives by Stelton & HolmBäcknordentoft are forged from a single piece of stainless steel, with the the handles segueing into the blade to form one solid piece. The knife is then covered in a special matte coating.

They were awarded the Red Dot Design Award 2011: Best of the best for the highest design quality.

Visit the A & R store for purchasing details.

By Lorette C. Luzajic

(Cutting Edges, Gestalten Books, 2011, ed. by James Gallagher et al.)

“Nothing is original,” said Jim Jarmusch, director of Down By Law. He took the words right out of my mouth.

“You’ve written about this theme numerous times,” said the friend who recently passed this quote to me.  Indeed, it is so relevant to me as a writer and artist most interested in collage that I’m appropriating it as my manifesto.

El Esplendor Dice La Palabra Viene – Rodrigo de Filippis

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: ‘It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.’”

Last week, I also received Gestalten’s Cutting Edges: Contemporary Collage. Edited by Robert Klanten, Hendrik Hellige, and James Gallagher, this 2011 collection is a veritable banquet of collage. My other art books have already retreated in surly envy of this new arrival, which has absorbed more attention in its short time here than many books I’ve loved for years. For the snippet-obsessed, this is a treasure chest.

Collage is, by definition, a pastiche of multiple sourced ideas fused to create something new. Collage is a sum greater than its parts. It is a collection of minuscule slices of the whole wide world, chosen randomly or carefully because, yes, they speak in some way to the artist’s soul. They transform into a brand new statement or aesthetic.

The publication of this and several others on the subject in recent years heralds positive movement towards popularity and legitimacy for collage as an art form. I welcome this shift wholeheartedly, of course, but it isn’t surprising that acceptance of collage has been rare. Collage itself is new.

Never mind today’s graphic design or MFA grads- even nonagenarians won’t quite be able to wrap their heads around what the arts were like in the world before the twentieth century. Art existed only as originals, and only a few of those were lucky enough to be purchased and preserved. The rest of everyone’ work through all of history was relegated to obscurity or obliteration. There were no postcards or small prints or Flickr sites to archive creativity. Only the extremely wealthy were privileged to see, much less own, art.

Collage couldn’t possibly exist when reproduced images themselves were rare or nonexistent. Most certainly there wouldn’t be anyone cutting and pasting from available sources like Titian or Michelangelo originals. Collage simply couldn’t be invented before the proliferation of the image. It required the printing press, photography, and mass reproduction technologies. This is why its history is mostly limited to the past century. Collage is truly modern art, married to modern invention. Without the machinations of mass production, there was nothing to collage.

“The collage as an art form first appeared in the work of George Braque in the early twentieth century,” writes Dr. Silke Krohn in one of Cutting Edge’s two essays. “In close association with Pablo Picasso, Braque pioneered the cubist style as a means of analyzing objects with greater precision.” This created an “appetite for deconstructing and rebuilding” that changed the history of art forever. Krohn says that Braque is considered the first to glue paper- colle- in his work, in 1912. Then Picasso “spent the next two years experimenting with all sorts of materials.” The futurists, dadaists, surrealists, and pop artists also made use of fragments like “newspaper clippings, labels, tickets.” Collage techniques were common but not exclusive in all of these.

Epitaph for a father and mother of three – Greg Sand

Most artists or appreciators of modern art are intimately acquainted with Kurt Schwitters and Robert Rauschenberg- two of my personal faves. But what then? How many collage artists working after 1970 can the average informed person name? As the saying goes, some of my best friends are collagists. But obscurity has  been a given for any contemporary artists working seriously in the medium. Still, we are hopeful that our astonishing spectrum of creativity will be more widely recognized, and of course, more popular in sales. And this is why Cutting Edges is so exciting and so important.

What changed between Rauschenberg and the beginning surges lately of what I know will be a long and continuous chapter in art history? Just as collage was dependent for its birth on image technologies, the Internet can be thanked for showcasing, networking, and other small steps toward limelight.

“…It was thanks to the massive amount of images being continually uploaded that I had the opportunity to discover hundreds of other artists doing amazing things with collage,” writes James Gallagher in the preface essay.

He explains how Cutting Edges began as a folder stuffed with beloved works. He then created a proposal and was soon transformed into curator of a series of collage-based shows called Cutters in Brooklyn and Berlin. Then Gestalten, a German publisher with its finger on the pulse of culture, got involved and now before me is this wonderful book.

All the places Jarmusch has asked us to look are here, all the suggested ways to open up to the world in our consumption and creation. Films, music, books, photos, paintings, dreams, architecture, signs, shadows, etc. Just for starters: anatomy drawings, textured paper, advertising, op art origami squares, toys, playing cards, maps, catalogues, graph paper, envelopes, obituaries, vintage photographs, pages from a Joseph Conrad novel, postage labels, flight tickets, receipts, stamps, magazines, comic books, poems, dictionaries, porn, numbers, bar codes, stickers, construction paper, science books, letters, and more.

Dog Show – Dolan Geiman

It’s impossible not to look in here and not see a thousand different ways, which will be exciting for an audience just getting their feet wet. For those who already think and dream in collage, the world becomes downright kaleidoscopic. There is a tumbling jumble of memories and sensations and impressions. Each reader will be attracted to some works, and challenged by others. The inclusion of certain pieces will  even infuriate, but not all collage is created equal, and that’s important to see.

Cake Club – Colin Brown

Colin Brown is one of my favourite artists in the world. He is a master of composition and symmetry. No matter how busy his collages are- and they are very busy, very noisy, very manic pieces- they are still perfectly balanced. This is completely instinctual, I’m certain, yet he never misses a beat. There is no way Brown charts out the law of threes and pre-plans his constructions beyond, perhaps, a focal point of inspiration or general theme. Yet the weight and balance and colour are perfect every time, surpassing many of the best artists, modern or traditional. I was  thrilled to find five of Brown’s pieces included in this collection.

Rambler – Kareem Rizk

Kareem Rizk is a new discovery. The work chosen for Cutting Edges didn’t grab me right away because the theme was cars, and cars have never personally moved me. But I found the backgrounds very compelling because of their simplicity and texture. The nuances of gently shifting shapes of paper with muted tones appealed to me. Intrigued, I Googled and found a goldmine of work that made me completely jealous.  Everything is a standout. Whether by glue or digital means, he combines a sparse few elements of paper and imagery into sublime perfection. Completely opposite to Brown, who uses hundreds, maybe thousands of pieces in each work, Rizk uses hardly any- sometimes as few as a handful of four or five. Nor do their themes overlap. What the two share, however, is that instinctive sense of composition.

Anyone can (and should) improve the composition in their work by learning easy techniques of seeing and arranging, skills taught in any intro classes for art or photography or interior decorating or floral arranging.  The obvious imbalances can be weeded out. Practice makes perfect, as they say.

Or does it? Without a doubt, all of us can grow our compositional skills by leaps and bounds. But only to a point. There are obvious rules of order, but beyond that, there are  finely tuned harmonies of hues and patterns and shapes and relationships so intricate that they seemingly leave the realm of art and move into science.

I don’t know if Kareem labours intensively over each piece, weighing decisions about placement and colour for hours, or if each piece is placed rapidly- but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that each element lands with bull’s eye accuracy every time. I hope it is not presumptuous to quote the film Amadeus in reference to Kareem’s art, but while sifting through the archives of his collages, a fitting scene from the movie came into my mind. Mozart’s rival Salieri was trying to explain the divinity of Mozart’s work. “Displace one note and there would be diminishment,” he said. “Displace one phrase and the structure would fall.”

Cutting Edges page – Valerie Roybal

Valerie Roybal is another new discovery for me. With meticulous, repetitive precision, Roybal takes narrow strips of paper and lays them rhythmically side by side. On occasion, alternative shapes complement this pattern; more often, the only variation is the variegation of text and print and colour and size of the strip of paper. Roybal refers to one set of works as “The Secret Language Series” which captures, almost, their distinction. Most of the works are laden with words and phrases and typography but the new language is more like musical notation. The rhythm is primitive and symphonic simultaneously; it also merges art with concrete and other forms of visual poetry.

At the same time, it erases the problematic elements inherent in visual poetry – namely, its unreadable nature- while highlighting its strength rooted in playfulness and aesthetics. While I appreciate every experiment in poetry, most visual poetry falls apart when one stops looking at the typographical orchestration and starts reading; even the majority of such work by geniuses like e e cummings is throwaway. I doubt that Roybal intended this experiment, but by removing the necessity of “reading” a poem and focusing on aesthetic arrangement, the expectation of “a good poem” does not enter the visual experience. The text only hints at words and phrases as if for their decorative elements and nothing else, so the joy of sifting through the words and deciphering handwriting and half-obliterated text becomes a pleasing puzzle of discoveries instead of the frustrating, anticlimactic results too familiar in poetry parallels.

I am so inspired by these that I’ve begun a few pieces in homage to Roybal, to see what a borrowed technique will yield.  “Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.”

We will see how Jim’s statement holds up when I am done.

LCL

Lorette C. Luzajic most recently showed several purely compositional collage paintings at Touched By Fire, an annual Toronto gala for artists with depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder. She is also exhibiting abstracts and pop art  as part of an eclectic trilogy called Four Front at Wayla Lounge. She is also a writer with eight books; the most recent is her first fiction collection, Funny Stories About Depression.

Visit her at www.ideafountain.ca.

Here are some samples of his work:

Waterpump Station, Landslingerland

Visit Filip Dujardin’s website to see his work and learn more about him.

Visit Elena Belmann’s website to see more of her work.

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B-roll of the HIDE/SEEK exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum.

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