The Sound of Stromness and Pigeons

The Sound of Stromess Fused plastic, paint and stitch 23 x 23 cm

While listening to Farewell to Stromness, thinking about a wonderful visit to Orkney last July and using only one specific piece of plastic from January (the orange from Sainsbury 40 tie handle food and freezer bags), I tried to find the sound of Stromness.  The snow is melting, the wind makes music through the moors. Land comes in and out of cloud and birds build their nests. Somewhere in my mind I am standing at a painting of a window in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona and birds sing from the canvas.

Distracted by plastic

My studio is clean and I have lots coming up later this week so the only thing I could fit in (between the usual mail art distraction) was a little plastic fusing. Not long ago I found a deflated balloon on the edge of a field and pocketed it. The worn gold was the starting point for this.  

I have been re-reading a couple of pastel books, looking for words for my workshop on Friday and Wolf Khan's use of 'calligraphy' was playing in my mind as I intuitively worked.

Fused plastic response

Following on from drawing the Somerset space, I used the drawing to inform this larger (6x8") fused plastic piece, mounted onto cardboard and then sewn.

noticing how figurative and abstract intersect

Pastel on paper 10.5 X 7.5"

Fused plastic 6.75 x 6.75"

acrylic on cardboard with fused plastic stitching  6X8"

An addition to Maine Time

Fog time

thick light 

presses down

Boat engines rumble

We leave footprints

across the lawn 

Fusepo story

In this house newly discovered plastic provides speculation, discovery and sometimes new ideas. We've had a few barbecues lately (the weather is amazing at the moment) and with a different range of food comes different packaging, different plastic.  I also thought to use bag seams. While we've enjoyed the summer evenings , I've had even less time with my iron, my paints, my glue stick.  In one stolen evening I tested a few new plastics and incorporated the paste papers I have been making. 

The interplay between images and words, always there for me, came out differently here.

A day without clouds

A day without clouds in the rearview mirror.

Some after image of museum trays,

lost objects catching light through dust.

I turn the mirror slowly refracting the angle

to configure a hedge, pond repetitions,

embers burning their opaque blue.

The whole androgyny of twilight or morn

dappled in moons.  And then

a bird raises its newspaper wings and sings.

Fusepo story 1

10^th July, 2013

Trashquilt portrait

In Maine my making was mostly limited to cooking.  However, at both ends of the day I found myself in the kitchen bursting with the need to experiment in some way and an hour or two with everyone in bed.  I carved stamps and combined them with coloured markers and zentagle-like black and white patterns. I carved figures and lobsters, butterflies and flowers. 

The only things I brought back to England were some walnuts, a few plastic bags and some wonderful cheap shaped erasers as well as a stack of adhesive foam.  You can press into the foam to create stamps and the figure in this stamp is made with that. I cut out the shape of a figure I glanced at in a magazine and decorated her with patterns. The way the stamp prints is determined by the pressure - each print varies quite a lot.

Tonight I decided to sandwich a couple of the prints in some fused plastic.  This is about 4X4.

Recycled plastic landscape collage

I haven't been sending out much mail art lately.  I need to get some work together for a little upcoming show and what's intersting me are the little things I make (thinking I'll send them out).  

This morning I decided to do a colour study using a bit of leftover plastic as a starting point. I inteded to whip these off and send them out.  I decided I would choose three colours in the plastic and mix them to make different values and hues and then sew the plastic to the surface. The background painting began as a middle value from mixing two of the dominant colours in the plastic. As I continued to paint, they seem to have been inspired by Diebenkorn and my fused plastic quilts. 

The bad news is that I have been forbidden from sending these out as well. 

Fused plastic collage

I have decided to do a series of these, to take them beyond their mail art potential. It turns out with careful handling most plastics can be fused and incorporating paper as a layer gives me even more possibilities. Yesterday I found myself asking for a bag, even though I had a cloth bag... some of the flimsy bags produce a different kind transparency.  Heavy duty bags are absolutely opaque. 

leftover plastic collages