Tag Archives: Collage

Triple jack

You’re not gonna believe this. Before the excavator-mounted jackhammer could finish clearing out the new basement hole four doors up, a crew at their neighbors across the street started foundation work with a hand-held jackhammer. And tomorrow, a site that was cleared today (bye, bye Fortune Panda!) will begin jackhammering. It is five doors down in the other direction. That hole is gonna have to be deep enough to accommodate parking for the twelve-apartments that they’ll be building on top of it.

Seven a.m. is when the percussive banging started every day this week. The throatier, more intermittent hand-held jackhammering started at around one and went til five.

We might need to leave. It’s really possible.

Finn and I escaped briefly in some nearby woods. It was otherwise a spectacularly beautiful day.

The stone being jackhammered, I may have mentioned, is Roxbury Puddingstone (or conglomerate). This morning I looked it up. Among other things I learned that Roxbury was once called “Rocksbury.”

This is nerdy of me, I know, but I found the geology interesting — or rather, I liked the feel of these words in my mouth. Such a wholly other vocabulary. Even though the words don’t mean all that much to me, I’ll bet this Wikipedia excerpt would make a great writing prompt.

Because of the noise, I was once again relegated to the basement for a zoom session. My chair sits near a bureau piled high with magazine pages and collage supplies and so while waiting for class to begin I found myself gluing shit down, playing. The first one is another Two of Pentacles, I think.

The second one (above) is commentary about the climate crisis, which I also ended up writing about.

Pix of trial and error

First semi-successful gelli plate magazine transfer
Magazine page after failed transfer

A fourth Amherst Writers’ circle today. Zero meetings next week. Change of rhythm. Special counsel appointed. Dingdong’s hat in the ring. Dogs walks while wearing hat and gloves. Twitter sputtering, me grieving. Reading a great memoir. Watching Derry Girls. Gave up on 1899. Pretty low energy here – sorry! Black bean soup last night. Tonight a roast chicken. Planning a pumpkin cheesecake. Extreme gratitude for a new beta reader. One hundred pages in. Good questions. Back hurts but it’s time to rise and shine!

Copyright over on Instagram

Paris Collage image plus Nat Geo photo of famous free climber Alex Honnold

As you know, I routinely use magazine cut outs in my collages — National Geographic, Vogue, Living Magazine to name just three. I also use screen shots.

I think because I’m not selling my work, copyright issues have never come up. However, this week a montage of recent collages got this weird notice on Instagram about 71 nations banning my reel.

Huh? I assume the Paris Collage Club pictures do not trigger copyright claims nor, obviously, do my own photos. When I looked over the slideshow what stood out were photos of Jared and Ivanka. Is someone scouring the internet looking for unflattering pictures of them?

Screen shots used in montages

I’ll post video here just to see what happens. I have transformed the duo’s images in a way that arguably skirts copyright problems. I don’t know. I don’t really think about this stuff much.

By the way, this spooky portrait shows up in the Jared/Ivanka Monster series. I love it so much and I wish I’d noted who the photographer was. Cut out years ago.

Focus and restriction

Focus and restriction can yield relief. After a few days on the BRAT diet, I am feeling better. Blood and stool lab work all came back negative. Phew. So a re-set. I can do that.

Focusing on the history of our young nation through the lens of John James Audubon also makes me feel better. I’m reading a second biography and taking notes. I’ve read two biographies about his wife, Lucy.

Okay, okay — so much for keeping secrets. But you probably would like to learn that at one point the Audubons owned close to a dozen slaves, yes? And that for some reason, historic mentions quantify nine as “a few.” Let me reality check. Would YOU refer to nine of anything as “a few”?

You cannot read about Audubon without getting fantastic descriptions of huge sycamore and chestnut trees, of paddling down the Ohio, of camping with the Osage, and of course birds. Birds, birds, and more birds.

Audubon loved them all which makes him even more appealing somehow — from the humble warblers and wrens to the spectacular eagles and rose-breasted grosbeak.*

Here’s what I’ve learned about JJA as a husband. He was hyper-focused on his drawings and investigations of nature, which meant he roamed the woods for weeks and even months at a time. He was an abject failure at business and also given to confabulation (DID he study with Jacques-Louis David, for instance?). In short, he was unreliable.

He presents the weird mix of fate and innate capacities that produces works of genius. But you also get poverty and extended periods of isolation for Lucy. For substantial stretches of their marriage, Lucy supported them by teaching.

It’s chilly this morning but supposed to reach 100 this weekend. Huh?

Had dinner with friends last night. Seven of us. We didn’t hug even though it’s been a while but if someone was sick, we’ve all been exposed, hugs or no.

K is on a conference call with China. They tend to be endless, which is part of why I’m outside. He goes into the office three days a week now, I think I’ve said. It seems a little pointless — the commute and diminished sleep the cost of collegiality?

All the annuals are in pots now.

* Under a Wild Sky, John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America, by William Souder, pages 90 – 93.

All 3 collages from Paris Collage Collective’s weekly prompt