New collages, big news, and unsolicited recommendations
Talking through the process of some new collages, and waxing poetic about god knows what else. Also- I'm moving to LA!
Hi everyone!
I know I haven’t sent one of these out in a while so I’m just gonna get right into it…
News
If you didn’t see my post on Instagram, I’M MOVING TO LOS ANGELES! This spring! Thank god! I’m so excited to live and work in such an inspiring place with so many inspiring people. That said: if you have a project coming up that you think I might be a good fit for, reach out. I can’t wait to make new work, Hollywood style 😎
I’m featured in a piece about queer collage artists in the new issue of French photography magazine, Fisheye. If you’re in France, pick up a copy! Mine just came in the mail and I’m very excited even though I can’t understand a word <3
I have some new work (portraits of the amazing Blu Del Barrio) and an essay on The Photographic Journal. We shot these photos in Laguna Beach in September and I’m so happy they’re in the world- it was a really special shoot.
Process
I’ve been thinking a lot about collage lately- how I want to approach it this year, what I want that side of my work to look like, how I want to be ~nourished~ by it, etc. So I’ve been really giving thought to WHY I make collages. I’ve always operated at kind of a 50/50 split- half the time I plan very intentionally (these are often my favorite collages) and ½ the time, using collage to decorate work that wasn’t specifically shot for that purpose. Which is fine too. But in the past, I’ve found myself using collage as a crutch- having a picture that was OK but not great, and using collage to jazz it up, and make up for the fact that I was bored by the original image. For the past year I’ve been working my ass off to get better at capital P Photography sans collage, and I’m so happy with the progression I’ve seen. But now I’m interested in seeing how I can combine them super intentionally while still allowing for experimentation and play. I’m working on acquiring a bunch of new collage elements (I talked about how I find and organize collage elements in the Q&A of my last newsletter) and generally trying to freshen up that part of my practice.
When I pull images from old magazines and postcards, the MET’s archive, et cetera, I think a lot about how collage can be the perfect medium for appreciating other peoples’ work- collage is just culling things you love, hopefully remixing the hell out of them, and making what is, in my silly little brain, like, visual art fanfiction (*gasps* as a Directioner, I-). It makes me feel connected to the artists before me, which is one of the best feelings a human can feel, imo!!!!
[Tangent: the entire 1st draft of this newsletter was about “originality”, and how I often work in a state of hypervigilance- trying to make sure my work always comes off as original, even though I know intellectually that all art is a mix of many inspirations, conscious and subconscious. I’ve realized lately, especially after listening to this episode of Creative Pep Talk podcast a couple times, that my mode as a visual artist is a rebuilder, meaning that I am a fan first, artist second- I love work that has already been made (I’m saying CONSTANTLY irl, “I love everything at least a little bit”, and I mostly mean it), and I want to put my own spin on it. My brain is constantly like this: how can I combine uh….PeeWee’s playhouse with like, Aubrey Beardsley and Claude Cahun? And then I can turn that collage into a set, and turn that set into a photo. Which coincidentally is a philosophy I’ve ripped from Wayne White. Even my IDEAS are collages of my heroes’ ideas!!! And I’m working on being cool with that so that I can eventually silence the mean little cop in my brain that polices every idea I have before I even get the chance to make it. I have a lot of resources culled on this topic so if you want a newsletter about this, tell me and I’ll do it!]
All of this said, I shot some photos of my friend Lisa Couchlocker recently for the sole purpose of using them to experiment with new collage styles. I ordered books about the photographer Cecil Beaton and the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley and got so inspired looking at some of Beaton’s old Vogue covers that I immediately started sketching and planning a test shoot. I initially was super into this Beaton photo of Fred and Adele Astaire, and I thought I would experiment with double exposures in a similar way until I realized that I actually wanted to turn those shots into this decapitated head-style collage that I experimented with a while back. So ultimately, these collages ended up being inspired by Cecil Beaton’s contrast-y black and whites and the negative space in his portraiture, but also was inspired by one of my forever favorites, Joni Mabe (she’s an amazing visual artist and also the founder of the Everything Elvis Museum in North Georgia, which I grew up hearing stories about. Feast your eyes. Her glitter mosaic pop culture paintings are so, so good.)
I’ll spare you the details on exactly how I did these because it’s truly boring and tbh self explanatory I think, but I hand painted the black and white images with food coloring (I did a DIY blog post on this years ago), then I applied glitter to certain sections, then I used black paint to get rid of the background and “decapitate” Lisa, then I rephotographed the print using a super bright hot light and sparkle filters to get the little star flares. Then I color toned it one more time and then it was done. It sounds like a lot but it’s not too bad.
We shot a bunch of fun things that day so there will be a bunch more collages and some fun portraits to come as well. <3 it’s so nice to PLAY
UNSOLICITED RECOMMENDATIONS
Celluclay (or any brand of pre-made paper pulp). It’s a perfect product- it’s just extremely fine shredded up paper that you activate with water. It’s like if paper mache and clay had a messy, oatmeal-y baby. I’ve been using it lately to cover cardboard cutouts so they look like Melies set pieces- lumpy, tactile, and weird. And the $10 it costs me is well worth not having to shred up my own damn paper pulp.
The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel I got this graphic novel in the mail recently and it is WAY BIGGER than I thought it would be–tome vibes–and when I woke up from a jarring nightmare at 5am the other day, I read it for half an hour and it Fixed My Brain. I’ve realized, ever since reading my friend Maggie’s amazing graphic novel, Honor Girl, that I really love comics- especially when they’re gay and kind of slice-of-life-y, and DTWOF is. Even the 12-page “cartoonist’s introduction” had my jaw on the floor- the level of detail in the illustration, the humor, the brilliance. It’s so good. (Also, as someone who was watching all of the L Word at this time last year, this is a much more intelligent piece of art about queer women in the aughts. It’s got a similar warm, homey “story about a group of friends and their escapades” vibe, but also handles politics and identity in really responsible, smart ways without ever losing its joy. BIG REC)
This clip from a Demi Lovato interview that is burned into my brain.
Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations. I recommend getting a cheap book of his work on Thriftbooks because 1. It’s always best to look at art IRL and 2. Because his work is FILTHY and it feels like a SLS (smutty little secret, I just made that up, Mensa vibes!) to have it on your bookshelf. He was born in 1872 and only lived to be 26, but wow did he make some truly beautiful and perverted art that feels fresh today. I’m talking decapitated heads (from his illustrations for Oscar Wilde’s Salome), freakishly giant penises, pierrot clowns chilling with nude women, et cetera. I read that a year before he died, he converted to Catholicism and on his deathbed asked a close friend (and publisher) to destroy all of his “bad…obscene drawings” which is dark. But I like to focus on this quote from years earlier: “I have one aim—the grotesque. If I am not grotesque, I am nothing.” :’)
The poem How to Not Be a Perfectionist by Molly Brodak
“People are vivid
and small
and don’t live
very long—”
Okay, that’s all! Thanks for reading, I hope this was helpful in some way, blah blah blah. Please reply to this if there’s anything you’d like me to write about in the next newsletter, or just to say hi! It’s so nice hearing from y’all. I love doing this newsletter and am going to try to send things out more frequently this year.
woohoo,
