tis the season...

Season's Greetings ...

"in Good Spirits"

"in Good Spirits"
(2009)

...commemorating a momentous year with the best friends I've ever had
... where it all began.

"Time Spaced Out"

"Where HAS the Time Gone"
(2009)

"the question is..."

"the question is..."
(10.20.09)

"An Evening with Gaugin"

Modi & Me

"Modi & Me"

The Yellow Pot

The Yellow Pot
(09.27.09)

Watercolor/dried grass fronds/chinese newspaper

The art of being...staying in FOCUS

(what a difference a drizzle makes)

FOCUS

This is one the most important words in my day to day living. When distractions of present or past life invade, I say this to myself repeatedly until I find myself centered once again.

This piece of art began with the desire to clean my watercolor palette...my intent to relax, to play. I did relax, I did play...but a little watercolor goes a very very long way!

What began as play, took shape and form in my mind. I found myself with a foundation for experimenting and for my ongoing love of collage in this instance, using my saved watercolor scraps, chinese newspaper and fresh watercolor paper.

My former father-in-law (now deceased) was an advertising artist...skilled hand-letterer. An early example of one of his 'alphabet' paintings, my favorite, hung in my home (until the splitting of 'matrimonial' property)...I am quite certain that the influence of it...is here and I'm certain too that he would have enjoyed this.

...and so, I now find myself with a 'subject' that utilizes two mediums I thoroughly enjoy. I will continue to cleanse the palette playfully and with form.

A Matter of Time

"A Matter of Time"

I was told that my grandfather was a candy maker and perhaps that was so when he arrived from Greece to the U.S.

However, at the time his image was captured, he was working on a railroad. His foot was injured so severely that it tore open his shoe. He eventually died from the injury.

We never met... until now.

"The Performance"

"The Performance"
(they played the Choo-Choo Boogie)

Well...if you live in and perhaps around my town, you know this
happens now and again under the bridges of Barrett & Nobottom Roads.

...everyone is usually there when it does.

My make-believe parents wouldn't have missed it for anything! ...even my little self and
my little chum were able to find room to watch.

It is usually very crowded.

"Remembering My Make-Believe Parents"

"Remembering My Make-Believe Parents"
(July 2009)

William & Elizabeth Clark, my make-believe parents, born long before me and married before I was born. They were nicely settled in by the time I arrived. For how nicely life went for the three of us, I'd say we were all ready, well-suited for one another.

They and only they referred to one another as Bet and Bill. To me they were mom and pop, and I was their little offshoot, munchkin, third pea in the pod. Life wasn't necessarily quiet, but it sure was serene. So much of our lives spent at the small cottage at the edge of the shore's stoney beach. Mom always painting, pop always writing...the glow of lamplight in the night, me on the little screened porch watching the fireflies flicker in time to pop's typing.

He always signed his notes to mom...love always my sweet Bet...your Hemingway

The beauty of fruit...

Oranges Are Good For You

Bull's Eye

Bull's Eye
Nikki Soppelsa 07.09
(photogram/found papers/watercolor/ephemera)

Study I

Study I
Nikki Soppelsa 07.09
(watercolor/found papers/ink)

"Under & Overload"

"Under & Overload"
Nikki Soppelsa
(updated 07.09)
What a difference!

"Under & Overload"
Nikki Soppelsa
(05.09)

The collage above was done as my entry to EBSQart.com's Ripped Off '09 Show and is my interpretation of Paul "Popi" Anderson's oil painting:

"Overload"
Paul "Popi" Anderson

The prospectus of this annual show requires artists to pair up and 'rip off' one another's work in their own/chosen medium. You can see why I approached him for this show! His art is vibrant with juicy colors and this bold painting jumped right out at me. I tried to capture the texture/shading of his oils with a variety of textured/found papers (including some of my watercolor scraps) and another 'layer' presented itself giving the piece another dimension.

I have been staring at this off and on since April...his painting while I studied it and then mine for all the time it took to create it. I have not tired of looking at either one! There are so many smaller works of art within the whole and even more inbetween and overlapping. ...and the colors are just so brilliant!

Paul combined two of my watercolors Fish Fry and Rainbow Trout creating an oil painting Fish Eyes View. Serene, yet, again vibrant in color and not only a wonderful play with light (the fish appear illuminated), but also with his original captivation...the eyes.

I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge, the process and am more than pleased with our results!
(Thank you Popi!)

WHAT'Z in the B.Day Box...(click)

Happy Birthday Karen !
Today is the Canon Fairy's 55th B.Day...her B.Day box with embellishments to commemorate.
B.Day card also with embellishments and a fragment of apropos vintage sheet music:
"...This fancy swishin' in position wears out all of my transmissions ammunition!"

(click on the pics to enlarge)

THE Award...!

for my "Waiting Too"
(below on blog)
(came with an unexpected check!)

I seem to have won an award for this...(I am wow'd!)

"Waiting Too"

my entry for the National Collage Society's "Wish You Were Here" postcard show...on view at the Butler Institute of Art, Ohio
(05.10.09 - 06.12.09)
Western Colorado Center for the Arts
(07.01.09 - 07.25.09)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is such a lovely place to wait where time waits too sometimes by the hand of others.
A place to pause, to rest, to meet and remember... to wish.
I'm not certain if their timely arrival was merely by chance or by design. There is a hint of both while we watch the four in stillness.

Patron's & Member's Mention

Woman 2009
The "Art" of Recycling

(05.08.09 "Woman 2009" rec'd Patron's Mention on EBSQArt.com)

...always traveling a road paved with deals and offers, her head swims with home, food, life, the world... and all the while, looking for the best deal, trying to save a buck. She's so efficient, she's received the much deserved "Best Buy" award. WOW!

And what a woman she is too...she has skillfully recycled and 'pieced' together a wardrobe that is not only color coordinated, but complimentary as well. The 'burger' bird sings her praises!

...a handwoven shopping tote, a necklace of tomatoes, garlic clove 'bling', "Same as Cash" sash, a pleated skirt with plenty to read and pumps fashioned from plump little "O" steaks. Her 'hair' is adorned with 'real' mini versions of my full-size, Junk Mail Hairsticks. Her luscious lips cut free-form...she's a natural.

Created specifically for the "Junk Mail" Show on EBSQArt.com ... other than the black background board and the two tiny pieces of bamboo stick, the collage is (otherwise) entirely made from my limit of one piece of junk mail...which presented me with more thought, more challenge and ample material to create the human-size hair sticks below.

(05.08.09 Hairsticks rec'd Member's Mention on EBSQ.Art.com)

Happy Birthday Paula...!
from
me and my little chum

SightSeers
is framed !

"Between 7 & 8"

I think I was somewhere between 7 and 8 and wanting to stay there for just awhile longer.
(you can do that here, you know...the crow is ever-obliging, a timely hand is always extended)

The Cahier of...MY ALTeRed ArT & CoLLaGe

My JOUrNaL

I keep journals of my watercolors, button jewelry, cooking, daily stuff and this...my cahier of Altered Art & Collage.
This art generates a great deal of paper, but it also utilizes the remnants and what others most likely discard. The 'trash' is so minimal, slivers and the tiniest bits.
The components of the cover utilize images printed for other collages already completed and for some yet to come...little pieces cut out that I just couldn't work in elsewhere and some images just for the fun of the doing!
The back cover (not pic'd here) has barely 'a thing' and may or may not develop more. The front feels done, but that may change...

~Who doesn't love cake~
For Rose's birthday...
It only takes one candle to make a wish...

SightSeers

SightSeers
What a lovely way to spend a day... no matter how many days it takes

Valentine's Day Greetings

When in happy recollection
Your smiling face I see
Then I wish you all the joy
Your friendship's brought to me.

CAT QUEEN

From the contents of the Altered Book below, a playing card, the Queen, enhanced royally...
and a tarot card (another collection), the Queen of Cups, enhanced to depict the interests and humor of a friend--more humor on the obverse, a memory of our summer adventures.

~Gift tags for my friends~

Tags...each apropos for the recipient and interestingly made up of elements of Me.
Cat, wirework, buttons, stamps and playing cards. The latter also a collection although what is being used for this purpose, while vintage, purchased for this purpose.
The playing card takes on 'interest' when altered, embellished, enhanced.

A Woman in the House

Altered Book No.1
"A Woman in the House"

My first Altered Book and given to my friend Karen. In a house full of books, I could not seem to lay my hands on one to sacrifice, so I set out to find THE book. In a local thrift for mere pennies, the titled spine of this book caught my eye...perfection! The theme was set, the inspiration without bounds.
A multitude of treasures, messages (and technique) not only cover the book, but are secreted within (just a sampling shown above) and all representational of how wonderful it is to be a woman and the friendship of women.

A comment on the art of the Altered Book...As a collector of books and taught as a child by my godmother to have respect/care for books, I found the selection for sacrifice difficult. Once the book was selected specifically for this purpose AND the intial tearing/cutting was done, I found such a freedom, a flow of creativity that I wasn't certain it would end. As I worked through the book, I came to the back/inside cover and felt comfortable, ready in ending the project...and more so, in giving this away...releasing it.
I found that the book had not really been sacrificed as I maintained the original theme and there are elements of this book still quite discernable. No longer does the book reside amongst shelves of discarded reading... rearranged, altered into another art form, it now resides, respectfully, on a shelf of its own.

(While the content of this book is meaningful, it is not necessarily personal. The process of making it was. I anticipate making my second which was to have been my first. Most of the elements have been gathered and for some time too. I think because the contents of this 'the next' are personal, I have been thinking/working up to the doing. I may set this one off to sea upon its completion!)

A composite to show framing and embellishments. I have accumulated (without necessarily meaning to), an enormous amount of buttons. In an attempt to 'let them out of the box', I have used them along with wirework in creating 'whimsies' and also to embellish.

Tea & Biscuits

Made for & given to my friend Diane. We met a couple of years ago while taking an art class, however, not the same class. She was working on what I like to call, PEAR ART...and there next to the making of art, we had our second common interest.
The background image is one of my 'tree/sky' photos...the remaining imagery is filled with message, memory, humor...depicting what I've come to know of her (including her beloved Rascal) and aspects of a friendship which I am delighted to have.