Virginia A. Spiegel

Boundary Waters 31 (North)

Kim Ritter and Judy B. Dales have invited me to participate in New Focus’ 08 to be held at the Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay, OR from December 2008 through February 2009.

Artwork for the exhibit can be no larger than 12″ x12.” I am always happy to work in a small format and this was a good piece to work on during the Invitational Reverse Auction as I could stop and start pretty easily. My inspiration came from my photos of the lovely moss and lichens built up on the north side of trees in the Boundary Waters.

It’s also a little joke in that I had always heard that if you are lost in the woods, you can find north by seeing which side of the trees have moss. My experience on testing this theory is that if the woods is thick enough for you to become lost, the trees usually have moss on all sides!

Boundary Waters 31 (North) - Detail

More information will be posted closer to the exhibition opening.

Exhibit postcard featuring Boundary Waters 9 - detail.

What fun! The opening of the Blue exhibition at Translations Gallery in Denver, CO will feature blue M&Ms, blue punch and the Blues for music. The opening is March 21, 5 - 8 p.m. More details here.

Four of my Boundary Waters series pieces are included in this contemporary art exhibition about the literal, abstract, and non-objective representations of the color blue, its symbolism and color theory. Thirteen artists will be displaying their ideas on the color blue in unique art forms including mixed media, silk, collaged canvas, and furniture.

Artists include: Bob Adams, Katherine Allen, Deborah Fell, Ali Pate, Jo Fitsell, Jason Pollen, Betsy Sterling Benjamin, Kevin McCarthy, Anne Bossert, Sue Hammond West, Angie Nordstrum, Cory Cason and Luanne Rimel.

Translations Gallery is Denver’s contemporary fiber art gallery. Visit their main webpage here.

Jennifer Black
Many Gatherings

Prize Spotlight - All artists whose collages are acquired will ship the collages directly to the patrons. As a small thank-you, there will be a drawing for prizes valued at over $500. This week’s prize in the spotlight is from Judy at Artistic Artifacts:

Found Paper Collage Package - Travel Theme. Includes several types of playing cards, postcards, maps, vintage geography text pages, foreign language pages/flash cards and cute little compasses. $20 Value.

Judy has also donated two fiber collage packages. Artistic Artifacts provides creative found objects for the contemporary fiber/mixed media artist.

Visit Artistic Artifacts blog for news about Judy’s newest venture. The Annex is a location for classes, exhibits, collage materials, and more in Alexandria, VA. The Grand Opening will take place March 28.

You can see all the prizes (over $500 worth!) here.

On to the collages. The collage that opened this post, Many Gatherings, is by Jennifer Black. The collage is 7.25″ by 5″ and is mounted on 10″x8″ Bristol board, signed, dated and ready for framing.

Materials include vintage sheet music, photo, envelope, and other papers; tissue papers; spine of an old book; paint, thread and old buttons. I like that there is a lot to look at in this collage and yet it has a nice cohesiveness to it.

Jennifer’s blog with a photo of the other collage she donated is here and her delightful etsy shop is here.

Tanja Novakovic
home is - where the heart is

Tanja is from Serbia. This charming collage is made of paper and glue. Another demonstration of the beauty of simplicity. The collage is approximately 10″ x 8″ and is mounted on watercolor paper, signed, dated and ready for framing.

See more of Tanja’s artwork here.

Collage Mania is May 5 and 6 with all the proceed going directly to the American Cancer Society through Fiberart For A Cause. A preview of all collages begins April 28. More information is here.

Fiberart For A Cause has donated over $150,000 to the American Cancer Society.

Isn’t this a crazy looking thing? An animal frozen under the snow? Weird crop circles? No, it’s a mouse or vole run (I can never remember which one) from when the snow was very deep.

As always, Tuesday means a new post on The Garbage Day Project here.

Burned Forest

I shared this photo with readers of Art, Nature, Creativity, Life as my favorite photo of 2007. Although it may be hard to tell in the low resolution required by the web, this photo is full of contrasts, in color and texture. It is a stand of birches in the Boundary Waters that was burned in the big Spring fire. But look more closely.

There’s the green of new life among the black trees. There’s the orange of the turning leaves of autumn providing a subtle reminder of the fire that came before. Among all the death and destruction of the fire, there’s life abounding.

This was my favorite photo of 2007 for not only aesthetic reasons, but for philosophical ones also.

My collages for Collage Mania are based on this photo.

September 1

This collage will be given to the patron who donates most generously to the American Cancer Society through Fiberart For A Cause (for a single collage or in aggregate during Collage Mania). This prize is to encourage donors, when possible, to donate a little more than the requested minimum of $80 on May 5 and $40 on May 6.

In every case, however, the minimum donation is all that required to “win” a collage. There are three other September collages which will be seen with all other donated collages during the Preview week beginning April 28.

Don’t despair, artists, there are some great prizes being gathered for a random drawing among all artists whose collages are acquired.

More information about Collage Mania here.
Call for Artists-deadline for jpegs April 1.