2024 12 I Hear My Blood Singing In Its Prison

In December, 2024, I went to New Orleans because I was accepted as a visiting artist at the Kolaj Institute. You can read about the whole experience at this blog.

You can read about the first project I made at this blog. 

Here are the details about the second project I worked on. It started with this cool little ironing board I bought in a flea market. Because I did not want to spent a lot of time doing assemblage work in NOLA, I added the nails at home before leaving for the residency.

This project was the second one I worked on, essentially a filler project when work on the first project made it impossible to work on. Eventually I painted on the substrate to get that accomplished before the collage work started. 

From my collage mentor Andrea Matus deMeng, I learned to go through a decision making process about what images to use that she calls "auditioning." Nothing is glued down yet in the photo above--it is a trial appearance before the glue comes out. 

The face goes down and the painting also begins.

By this point everything is glued down and the painting is still going on.

This little wooden chair survived a few years out in my garden with a bunch of other chairs used as decorative yard art. When I tired of that, this chair went into my stash because it was still in pretty good condition. In NOLA, I reinforced the legs and gave it a light paint wash and some highlights.

That was as far as this project got in NOLA. When I came home, I did the last bit of assemblage work to complete the effort. 

I added a clock pendulum as a topper.

The chair got attached in just the right spot.

A makeup compact contains a secret.

Thus we have I Hear My Blood Singing In Its Prison. The title for this project comes from the poem Sunstone by Octavio Paz. It is 37"H X 15"W X 11"D. It consists of an Ironing Board, Wood Chair, Nails (39), Makeup Compact, Broach, Clock Pendulum, Paper and Paint.