saw you at the show last night

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Front and back of cut-paper collage postcard mailed to Mick Boyle for his Mail Art Postcard Exhibition.

Car is a 1955 Oldsmobile 88. Photo of orangutan by Frans Lanting. Contortionist is from an engraving based on a painting by Pieter Brueghel. The squiggles are from a micrograph of some kind of cells, but I lost the legend—I'm guessing neurons in the hippocampus of a rat. I don't know what grammar book "Weaknesses to Avoid in Writing Sentences" came from, but the paper was so old and/or cheap, it fell to pieces when I glued it. 

If this collage seems wary, uncertain, poised in an odd position, it's because that's how I've been feeling lately. One kinda cool thing in my life just took place, but another thing that would be really cool, if it happens, is up in the air right now.

So...hey! by the way, I think it's amusing that's a '55 Olds, because that's the year I was born. Man the '50s seem like ancient history to me. Can you believe that for Halloween in 1959 I went as a beatnik? =laugh= But the car's not bad to look at. I noticed when I was cutting it out that it has little breasts underneath the headlights: they're parking lights or turn signals or something, but they look exactly like little glass breasts.

Flipside info: Background is part of a 1945 Texas highway map. Artistamps are by theanswerisseven (bug), myself (Pisceana), Wacky Stuff (man w/ noisemakers), C. T. Chew (bird), and Penelope Harris (Labyrinth). "Respect Apostrophes" stamp was made with a rubber stamp by Voz. I don't know who made the triangular one, but it was from Anna Banana's International Art Post. Clippings are from the Artful Home catalog (cardinal and cowboy-on-fish-on-wheels) and Discover magazine (elephant in orange "raincoat").

incoming: mad madge

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Mad texture from Mad Madge! The big curly blob just above the center is especially fun to touch.

when you leave this world

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Cut-paper collage postcard, mailed to Justina. This is just my second black-&-white collage, and I must say, it was fun to make! It seems like the composition is easier to figure out when you don't have color to deal with.

Background (big propeller, small people) is part of the business end of the Olympic, sister ship to the Titanic. Figures in upper right are Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Gentleman standing in water is Alfred Kidd, who based his 93-pound steam-powered model on the Empress of Britain, a Canadian ocean liner sunk by a U-boat in 1940 (photo taken 1953). Tendril thingies from a photograph by Lisa Elmaleh. Words from an ad for Levi's.

You might want to check out my Flickr gallery of (other people's) black-&-white collages.