Description of the Series
A series of semi-abstract collages, mostly evocative of landscapes and/or the natural world. Made with self-made patterned papers, plus some rust-speckled salvaged paper and some tissue paper rubbings. Soft graphite and/or sanguine shading on most; ink stippling on some. All are 5″x7″.
The Pre-history of This Project
I had been playing with landscape formats or schemata: the large-scale structure organizing an image. I made a collection of such compositional schemata, along with little thumbnail sketches of paintings and photos that fit each one. I used a graphite pencil on the pages of a simple dot journal.
Then I decided to make a collage somehow based on a schema: to interpret that schema in an abstract way, retaining some feeling of a landscape.
So I needed collage papers. I created a number of A5 sheets, mostly using a lightweight cream-colored Fabriano laid paper, using ink and a variety of mostly unconventional tools: twigs from a bush outside my door, cotton swabs, leaves, an eyedropper. I also included some rust-speckled pieces of the back of a weather-destroyed poster I collected in Madrid, along with some crayon rubbings on tissue paper. I used a 224 gsm Canson paper as a substrate.
Finding a Working Method
Tearing paper and gluing it down is intuitive work. It resists prior planning. It is a bit dreamy, yet it requires strong attentional focus—focus of a non-verbal, non-logical kind—to find and to follow some nameless thread of an idea, as it emerges. Failure to find and to follow such a thread quickly turns the collage incoherent; prematurely naming the thread turns it trite.
For each collage, I selected both a compositional format (like, the “L”) and a specific thumbnail to work from. But I did not try to reproduce that landscape in collage. Instead, my aim was to obscure that relationship: to follow the masses of value or of movement, but in a different way. To see what would emerge. Sometimes I incorporated ideas from other thumbnails of the same format. Sometimes I changed the orientation. (Below, three vertical collages based on horizontal schemata and thumbnails.)
As I worked, I focused on the memories of the natural world that were evoked, for me, by the developing work. For example: the sensation of excluding pressure of stands of waist-high vegetation; the complexities of the edges of a body of water; vast open vistas; tiny forest pools; narrow canyons.
After the first few pieces were placed, I left behind the chosen thumbnail, and held its compositional schema rather loosely. My main guides became the sensations, memories, and emotions evoked for me by the textures and forms of the developing work. As each work neared completion, I added some very soft graphite shading. To some, I also added sanguine conté shading and/or ink stippling.
Presentation
Some works in this series have been sealed with cold wax medium. All are signed with my “dotted M” logo. This series is currently matted and framed. Mats have a (nominal) 6″x 8″ opening, allowing a small margin of the paper substrate to show around each collage. Framed size is 8 7/8″ x 11″.
You can view these abstract landscape collages on my Portfolio page, under Collections > Series: Abstract Landscape Collages Series I.