Without Paint

"Alfred Orders the Number 7 Entree"

by Sheryl Todd (tapirgal)

Collage on paper

September 13, 2010

I submitted my first collage to Scrapiteria. When I found the collabortative collage blog site many months (or years?) ago, I realized I had stumbled into a nest of kindred spirits. I understood the medium. I understood the humor. I laughed a lot. I added their link to my blog sidebar and visited often. I've been making collages since 1967 or 1968 (few are posted here, and that's another project for "when I have some time,") but mine are usually made with paint and often some kind of drawing or scribbling included. Scrapiteria's format is strictly cut and paste with paper. I thought of making one without paint or scribbles to submit, but I had also stopped making them for a number of years during this past decade while my business was growing and I was focused on other things. Too bad. I love making collages. So, with encouragement from several friends, I pitched back in. When, recently, I noticed that Scrapiteria was now open to guest submissions, I found a weekly theme I wanted to try and here is the result. My mother (why do I think of her at times like this?) would never understand Scrapitiria, but it's definitely my cup of oysters.

Originally I intended to caption the collage, "Alfred concluded that what the menu lacked in refinement, it made up for in attention to the particular sensibilities of the saurischian palate," but I think the short title is just fine.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

"Among Papers #1"

Among Papers 1
by Sheryl Todd
Collage on Paper with Paint
August 14, 2010 ~ Astoria, Oregon

Peace of stories
With dust in the air
Through the glass
Witness to all you did
Perforated
Complex questions
You depart the day
All magnificent
In Piraeus
Or formal prayer
Along a jungle river
And
Out of the herd

(The poem is an experiment. I like the way it came out.)

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Collage: Fighting the Box

This is the first collage I've done since maybe 2004. I'm still not letting it (whatever it is) go, or letting it out, but at least I'm addressing that fact, finally. I used to do collages all the time, and they are good for my mental health and sense of self. After awhile, they get less intense - usually. I did them especially when I was anxious or tense. I often did three in a row. The first was either too controlled or all over the map. The second often had something to say that was readable, and was usually the one with any artistic merit (if any of them was going to have artistic merit). By the third one, I was usually over whatever it was, and there wasn't much left to transfer to the image.

Today I felt I was in none of those three categories, but I felt that whatever it was, the lid was still on; my inside was boiling. It was frightened to have the lid even be lifted with any chance of the content escaping. Partially, the lid was on because I don't know where to go with it. And, I'm censoring. And I'm doing that partly because I have enjoyed blogging photos and images, and I thought I might blog whatever came out. But this did not feel safe, and it felt like an imposition on anyone who might see it, but I also felt that I wanted to put it in blog format so I could see it that way and add some text. It feels journaled and more complete.

Making the collage felt good and bad. There's a reason I've been resisting. I was tense by the time it was done, but quite relaxed an hour later [and the typing didn't affect my hands badly as it usually does these days]. The image is more or less the same as many of my more emotional but less elucidating old collages, but there was something new and liberating in the visceral aspect today, maybe because I hadn't felt quite that in such a long time. I need to do this. Taking and posting photos may be more fun for people to look at, but it doesn't do much for the stuff that's locked up. Without the art side of it, just blogging photos probably helps keep the lid in place, because it makes me think I'm having a dialogue with the inside, when I'm barely whispering.

I wonder how much of fibromyalgia is trying to keep the inside stuff inside. That, for sure, is stressful.

I noticed that in today's collage there is no humor and no real place of safety. Many of my collages have those elements, so maybe they will come back over time.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Boats and Rain

This morning the tugboat Betsy-L passed by my deck in good lighting for a photo that shows some detail, if it's not dramatic. She's the same tug that posed in this dramatic lighting and ended up on my Astoria, Oregon, Daily Photo blog.

Six minutes later, at 12:13, the storm had come in.

After work, I drove over to Warrenton to Starbucks and sat in the parking lot for awhile talking on the phone. I became interested in the way the rain on the windshield broke up the sign pole into jagged fragments.

I also especially liked the shape of the bare, damaged tree to the left of the pole and the way the street rippled.

It wasn't all that long before there was blue sky again.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

White

Astoria, Oregon ~ January 12, 2010

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.