/Joining people through paper
God, I dream of one day creating a space in Pittsburgh like Melbourne's That Paper Joint, an all-in-one collage studio, workshop & gallery space. Pure fucking magic.
/A metaphor for collage
There's a lot to love about the new issue of Plastikcomb, the bi-annual analog art publication from Aaron Beebe and {ths}, but the feature with collage idol John Gall is pure *chef's kiss*.
And if you’re wondering where the name comes from …
“Plastikcomb is actually a metaphor for collage. In the States, when it was picture day, you were handed a plastic comb, in which your current hairdo was styled to make you look “presentable,” and more than often you ended up looking like a completely different person. Like collage, you take an image, and make it something else, or perhaps give it a new purpose or meaning.” – Aaron Beebe
/Meticulous cuts & mathematical accuracy
“Advice” | 2022
A true alchemist, Koike's deceptively simple constructions (and deconstructions) transform found photographs using meticulous cuts and mathematical accuracy. Fun and fascinating and always magical. He's definitely worth a follow on IG. (See also: Single Image Processing).
“Collage allows the opening up of conscious, which is very direct … It is also a way of looking at what you are consuming all the time.”
- JOHN STEZAKER (via)
“Sometimes we are so confused and sad that all we can do is glue one thing to another.”
- LYNDA BARRY (via)
/One issue a year for ten years
A large-format literary magazine published once a year for ten years that is designed by Matt Wiley and wrapped in the collage work of Katrien De Blauwer? Yes, please.
“Each work is a laborious task of discovery. and invention with numerous mistakes, false starts, delusions, distractions, and dead ends before the picture and its meaning reveals itself. … I work in chaos.”
- LOU BEACH (via)
/Intelligent Illustration for Dumb Times
night birds in the royal gardens”
A self-described "sophisticated primative," Lou Beach has been in the cut-and-paste game since the early '70s. Terry Gilliam (of Monthy Python and Brazil fame) called Lou Beach "the greatest collage artist on the planet." I tend to agree and encourage you to spend some time with his work. Some of my favs are below.
/Unknown people & places for your walls
I’m offering up some newness over in the shop today in the form of 18 different prints.
These prints represent a selection of some of my personal favorite collages from the last few years.
So, if you like …
unknown people & random places
colors & non colors
shapes & blobs
obstructed landscapes & obscured faces
…then these fine art prints will make a welcome addition to your home or office or home office or office home.
All are limited edition, signed & numbered, & printed using archival ink on a heavy museum rag (MOAB entrada rag bright 290gsm for all you paper nerds out there) and come in sizes (5”x8” - 16”x20”) & prices ($25 - $70) to accommodate most spaces and wallets.
/Subterranean no more
New studio w/ kiddos
After years of subterranean toil (read: making art in my basement), I’m stoked to announce that I’ve (finally) moved into an actual studio space.
The 2nd floor views are great, but the best part is that I get to share the space with a friend: the ridiculously talented & imaginative & generous Andy Kehoe.
We moved in a few weeks back & are still settling in but goddamn it is nice to be above ground & around another human & have a space that’s only purpose is for making art.
Around this time last year, I made a commitment to focus more fully on making my art.
I had just turned 40 & felt a strong urge to abandon all other professional pursuits & to find a way to sustain myself & my family through cut+paste collage.
Were these urges the first tendrils of an impending midlife crisis? Absolutely.
But unlike the Mazda Miata Midlife Crisis, my wife & kids are not ashamed of the choices I’m making.
Also, I didn’t quit my day job. So that helps.
///
All joking aside, collage is how I maintain my mental health.
The process of searching & cutting & sorting & pasting together scraps of paper helps me reconnect with my pre-internet brain & gives me a space to give order to chaos.
There is something about the tactile nature of analog collage that soothes an anxious mind.
///
I turn 41 next week, but I gotta say, I’m looking forward to the year (& years) ahead.
Plenty of newness on the horizon.
PHOTOS
1/ Prints in progress
2/ The control center (aka Andy’s digital art setup)
3/ Print + packing zone
4/ The Subterranean Studio (so long, Stinktown)
/Newness abounds
Sooooooooo it’s been a few months of radio silence (oh, hello again) but I’ve got as good an excuse as one could hope: My wife and I had ourselves another baby back in February.
His name is Ollie and he’s a big smiley giant of a boy and we love him to death, but his arrival did kind-of-sort-of-absolutely force me to take a break from the studio and this website and blog and pretty much all things art-related.
Right before Ollie’s birth I had been working feverishly in the studio, with a daily routine of cutting and pasting and sorting scraps and generally just making all sort so new collage work. Some of it turned out to be quite good (imho) and since the ol’ website hadn’t had been updated in forever, it was time for a refresh.
So, if you’re eyeballs are craving something new to gaze upon, I humbly offer you this gallery of new collage work.
New work
+ In other news, I’m super stoked to have been commissioned to do an illustration for the Carnegie Museum of Art’s online quarterly journal Storyboard. The piece is an expanded version of one of my few digital pieces, “Overslaugh,” which I originally made in 2011 as part of a series of collages (Connotations) inspired by dictionary.com’s Word of the Day.
As an added bonus, the CMOA’s asked me to turn the illustration into a print that you could buy in the museum’s shop. I did and you can.
“Overslaugh Redux” | Digital Collage | 2019
+ Since I was making prints of “Overslaugh,” I took the opportunity to make prints of three new pieces, as well. All three are printed of archival quality, printed on Epson Hot Press Bright 330gsm paper, and are limited editions of 30. And all three prints are available in the shop.
>> SHOP AVAILABLE PRINTS <<
A big THANK YOU to Matthew Newton, managing editor at Storyboard (and an amazing writer and author of Shopping Mall) and to the ever amazing artist Andy Kehoe for help with the prints.
/Putting things together
In a lot of ways, the simple act of making any type of collage is like assembling a puzzle where you decide what the pieces are and how they fit together.
But a few days ago BoingBoing shared the work of Tim Klein (who was inspired by Mel Andringa) and both of these artists take the concept of collage as puzzle to a whole new level.
I mean, holy shit, this stuff is awesome and looks like so much fun to do.
Tim Klein
Mel Andringa
More cut-and-paste in motion/
I’m a sucker for a good video collage, and I’ve used this space to share some of my recent finds (here and here), but it’s been a while so I thought it time to share a few more.
1/ Menace Beach :: Animation by Sara Serna
The above video is a tripped-out black-and-white vid animated by Columbian artist Sara Serna and set to the driving rhythms of UK duo Menace Beach. Serna’s Vimeo page is worth a watch, too.
2/ Beck :: Animation by Antonio Vincentini
I admit, I haven’t listened to a lot of Beck’s newer stuff (I checked out after 2008’s Modern Guilt), but the dude knows how to write a catchy track … and though “Wow” might not be of the same caliber as his older stuff, paired with the vibrant animation of Brazilian artist (and skateboarder!) Antonio Vincentini it makes for a fun watch.
3/ RIVE :: Animation by Temple Caché
The trip-hop inspired tunes of Belgian band RIVE fit well with the over-saturated colors and vintage cutouts created by the French creative company Temple Caché, whose other work also incorporate quite a bit of collage elements. I especially dig the video they did for American-French cosmic-hop group FREEZ (below).
(H/T I came across several of these videos over on Toombes.com … which is an excellent collage-focused blog/journal curated by Finnish designer and collage artist Niko Vartiainen).
Newsletter/
Hey -
It's been a while. Too long really.
When I first committed to writing these blog posts, I made a promise (mostly to myself) that I would post one every week and it's been ... [looks at watch] ... nearly two months since my last dispatch. Yikes.
Sorry for the radio silence but the truth is ... I needed a break.
I burned myself out pulling together spec work for a big editorial illustration gig (that fell through) and taking on several freelance jobs (that are going well) and avoiding death by daily news (I'm still alive) and grinding at my day job (we're growing) and then deciding to have another kid (it's a boy!) and so on.
You know, life stuff.
But I've missed sending this email, and I hope you've missed receiving it, and I woke up today and decided I needed to get this thing back on track. So here we are.
There will be other breaks in the future because sometimes—sometimes—you just need to step away.
If I had to guess, I'd say the next break will probably maybe definitely coincide with the arrival of baby #2 at the end of February. Until then, I'll be here.
Works in progress/ Sure, I haven't been doing the email thing for the last few months, but that doesn't mean I haven't been in the studio (I have). Here's a sampling of some new work.
Making things to someone else's spec/ A few thoughts on commissioned collaging, working with other people's inspiration, and the endless process of searching through scraps.
The revenge of analog/ Season three of the always excellent Hurry Slowlypodcast started last week. My favorite episode from season two was with journalist David Sax who argues on behalf of the tactile.
Some other things/ This music video collage tripped me out ... a publisher wisely collected the collage works of John Gall ... speaking of books, Craig Mod explores the importance of margins .... there is a reason Devo is the greatest band ever ... and the art direction at Sovrn Skateboards is on point.
- Stephen
PS/ I'll let this quote by Charles Henri Ford speak for me.
June - August 2018/
For much of 2018, I've been burying black & white photos of mid-century business men beneath pinkish scraps of paper.
Though I'm still not sure what the work is driving at (my daily mantra is often "What the fuck am I doing here?"), I'm just rolling with it.
In a recent episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Dave Chappelle says something to Jerry Seinfeld about how the idea takes you where it wants to go.** And that's what I'm doing: letting the idea, the impulse that if I just keep doing iterations on this motif, I'll get to where I need to go.
And, ultimately, I don't think it matters what I think I'm doing. Or what I think I'm trying to say. It's not for me to decide anyway.
All that matters is that I make the work.
There's an Andy Warhol quote that I'm reminded of: “Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”
I also like to the think, along with deciding if the work is "good or bad, whether they love it or hate it," that everyone else should decide what it means, too.
Onward.
** h/t Austin Kleon who breaks down the episode and the quote on his blog.
/Part 2: Rejection & Inspiration
A couple months back I mentioned I had an editorial illustration project in the works, and since then I spent much of June and most of July working on mockups to present the editor of the publication with the hope of landing the job (a serialized novel published in weekly segments in print and online).
Well, I didn't land the gig, but I don't feel bad about having my work rejected.
I don't feel rejected because I know I did my best and I believe the publisher when they say they liked the work but it was too much of a departure from their normal aesthetic and that they felt more comfortable going with an artist they'd worked with before.
And even if that wasn't the whole truth, I'm grateful for the opportunity. I learned a lot and the process forced me out of my comfort zone, leading me to incorporate some digital tools into my work). What's more, the project was an excuse to do some research and discover some really awesome artists working in the field of editorial (and/or book cover) illustration who utilize collage techniques.
Here are a few favorites from my inspiration board (with each piece linking the corresponding artist's larger body of work). Enjoy.
/Creating work to someone else's spec
I don't do commissions, well, ever. But recently a friend asked me to make her something specific.
The final piece is above, and I'm pleased with how it came out (and more importantly, so is she), but since I completed the work, I've been thinking about the process of making a collage — which usually involves at least some elements of randomness — to spec.
It went something like this:
After I agreed to make her a piece, she sent a ton of "inspiration" images. Photos of things she liked and said, "Like this." Most of the images were of Western landscapes at sunset with lots of dusty pinks and yellows, or vintage black and whites photos of cowboys and cowgirls. And then she said, "Horses. Make sure there are horses." And then she sent Hollywood production stills from 1960s Westerns.
Her ask seemed easy enough. It was like she'd sent me a list of ingredients and then said, I don't care what the meal is but make sure you use these. Except that, well, I couldn't actually use the inspiration images she sent because I didn't actually have them (they were digital).
And so it took me 3 months to make the piece.
Most of that time was spent sorting through every scrap of paper and every book and magazine that I own. And when I found the pieces, the collage came together quickly.
Which is always how it happens. All of the time is spent on the searching.
All of this is to say, I guess I do commissions now. If you're interested in your own unique something, here's more info on pricing and process.
Newsletter/
During times of uncertainty and overwhelm, I tend to take stock of the things that bring me joy.
For example, sometime approximately, oh, 19 months ago, feeling very uncertain about what the future might hold, I made a list of my 100 all-time favorite albums.
This seemed like kind of pointless exercise, and yet I spent months working on the list, and this small act of building and organizing a list of things I knew I loved helped me regain a sense of control over my environment.
This same feeling is what drives me to collage, to cut up old magazines and glue their guts back together. There might be better forms of therapy, but this is what works for me.
Anyway...
Here are those 100 all-time favorite albums/ According to me. Note: Only the top 30 are ranked in order; the rest are listed chronologically.
A catalog of collage catalogs/ Again, recently feeling overwhelmed by current events, I decided to take stock of a few of my favorite books about my favorite subject.
Infinitely discardable/ A small bit of text from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale caught my eye as I was re-reading the classic book. It's about the promise old magazines hold.
Some other things/ My good friend's short story collection—All the Names They Used for God—got a killer write-up in the NY Times Book Review (which, as an added bonus, is accompanied by a stellar collage by John Gall; so win-win-win) ... two killer skate parts dropped on Thrasher this month: Zion Wright and Austyn Gillette ... and this supercut of dancing in movies is guaranteed to make you feel good.
- Stephen
PS/ I'd love to know what albums would make your all-time list.
On finding order in the chaos/
I think a lot about marketing and selling. Mostly because marketing is my day job, but also because, like most artists, I aim to make work with value.
And because I think about marketing, I think a lot about attention. How to get it. How to keep it.
But also, how to prevent others from stealing mine.
"Our life experience,” William James once said, “will equal what we have paid attention to, whether by choice or default.”
At times, it all feels like a losing battle. There are so many things vying for my attention — some good (work and art and family) and some not great (social media and the internet and the news) — I find it hard at times to focus on any one thing for a sustained amount of time.
Maybe the real breakdown is between analog and digital. Maybe smartphone/social media addiction is real. That the habit of sitting down at a computer, or checking a phone, and staring at a screen for hours is the new smoking.
Or maybe the war marketers are waging on our attention is real.
"Most advertisers are trying to out-distract people from their distractions and even what they actually want to be doing. Often, you’re looking to capture the attention of someone who is either searching and being presented with multiple options (like in a search campaign), or they’re not searching at all (like in display and social advertising). To make matters worse, they’re probably multitasking, too. So, how do you win against those odds?"
- from Disruptive Advertising
So maybe that's why the tactile nature of analog collage, and the process of cutting and pasting, feels like therapy to me.
Because it gets me away from the screen and "the feed," and the anxiety-inducing effects of both.
"Everything had broken down ... and new things had to be made out of fragments."
- Kurt Schwitters
My studio is in my unfinished basement. There's not much down there besides laundry and storage and a dehumidifier. It's just me and pile of old books and magazines, some scissors and Xacto knives and glue.
It's a place for me to exercise control over the world itself, and to brush back the overwhelming digital crush of apps and push notifications and social media rants and constant news and updates and marketing messages and images upon images upon images.
"We become what we attend to — nothing more, nothing less. A steady and exclusive stream of reality TV, entertainment gossip, social media chatter, and 'breaking news' about the latest celebrity scandal or Trump’s most recent tweets — all endlessly cycling into each other — turns us into the bland clickbait of the attention harvesters. Yet, though we justifiably consider the enslavement of bodies a terrible wrong, we willingly surrender our minds for the profit of others. This new, almost hip, kind of slavery is sought, not fought."
- from LARB review of Tim Wu's The Attention Merchants
In the end, I believe collage to be a place for me to reclaim a small part of my pre-digital brain.
It's a place to find connections. To people, to things, to ideas.
And connections between fragments of thoughts, to weave them together into a whole that makes sense, and that provides order to the chaos of my mind.
And books by collage artists/
I've been building my collection of collage/art books. So far, these are my favorites (with the most recent acquisitions listed first).
And Another Thing...
Anthony Gerace
Anthony Gerace is one of my favorite collage artists working today (he's also a killer designer/illustrator and amazing photographer). I especially love his series "There Must Be More to Life Than This."
This book, according to the closing essay by Laura May Todd, "is an ode to the delicacy of process." Which, it is. But it's also a collection of some insanely awesome work by an insanely talented artist.
Published by Aint–Bad.
Misophonia: The Art of Jesse Draxler
Jesse Draxler
I still remember the first time I encountered Jesse Draxler's work (it was this piece and it was waaaaay back in 2011 on Flickr when Flickr was still a thing).
Though his work has matured (and grown in scope), his style has always been unmistakable. Stark, black & white, deconstructed human forms. 100% disturbing and beautiful.
Published by Sacred Bones.
The Age of Collage 2
Various Artists
Gestalten publishes some really well-curated art books, and they've done a few cataloging contemporary collage (two more are featured below).
The Age of Collage 2 features the work of 70+ artists, including collage-idols Ruth Van Beek, John Baldessari, James Gallagher, and John Stezaker.
The Age of Collage: Contemporary Collage in Modern Art
Various Artists
Another one by Gestalten (though it's no longer available on their site, it is for sale on Amazon).
This one is from 2013, and it features a few of the same artists from Volume 1 (albeit different work), but also includes work from collage killers Office Supplies Incorporated, Johanna Goodman, Jesse Treece, Nicholas Lockyer, and John Gall.
Implications
John Hundt
I can't remember where I first encountered this book or the work of John Hundt, but I'm thankful that I did.
This collection of his "Totems" (essentially, figures that are built up with a combination of human, machine, animal and object parts) are absurd, yet whimsical ... and totally rad.
Published by Ampersand Gallery & Fine Books.
420 Characters: Stories
Lou Beach
Lou Beach might be my favorite collage artist working today.
His style is completely distinctive and unlike anything else I've come across — and he's an amazing writer to boot. 420 Characters is really more about Lou's writing (flash fiction which began as Facebook status updates), but the short stories are punctuated periodically by his collages.
In the words of Jonathan Lethem, "Holy shit! These are great!"
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Cutting Edges: Contemporary Collage
Varioius Artists
This was, I believe, the first book published by Gestalten about collage (and the first I bought), and like The Age of Collage 1, this one is no longer available on their website (but there are several third-party vendors hocking it on Amazon).
Like the other two Gestalten collections, this is an excellent introduction to a wide-variety of collage artists (though this one does seem to skew more toward digital collage than analog) including Julien Pacaud, Rodrigo de Filippis, and David Plunkert.
