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MARCIA SANDMEYER WILSON COLLAGE

Here it is 2012 and I can't find the photographs from 2002 that are described on the bottom of this page. (Switch computers, switch servers, and all is lost, sigh.) So here are some more recent collages, all made on the same day, August 9, 2008.

This collage includes marblized paper, a head by Velasquez (I think), boots by AndrewWyeth, a sun made from an article of jewelry, and a tree from torn papers. I do not recall where I got the arm shapes. What does this collage mean? Looks like a time of decision, perhaps. A man at a crossroads. I did not begin with a thought, a title. Those came after I made the composition. That's the way I like to work. Find the picture in the "stone" or some abstract field.

I named this collage from a quote by Walter Benton, "somewhere a clock is timing us-- hurry!" A dear friend of mine, Pamela Despres Dove, wrote that in a book of poems she gave me. In college, she told me she would live to be 34 years old, and when she died on February 11, 1970, it turned out to be true. I still miss her.

If I remember correctly, this collage includes a woman from a LaTour painting, a house that looks like it came from a Hopper painting, and a chariot that looks like it was an iron toy.

This is one of my favorite collages, also made on August 9, 2008. I named it "hope is at hand" but perhaps it would better be called "the vision," or "journey's end" or "time to rest," I don't know for sure.

This collage incorporates a chinese brush painting, Wyeth's Christina's world heroine, and what looks like a netherlandish painting of Christ. A spur serves as a sun. I could look at this collage for a long time.

Here are some collages I made in September, 2002. To see how they look togther, click on my "books" page.

The left collage shows an OWL peering down at an old man and a girl in front of a tree. the man and girl were cut from a magazine advertisement and the bird came from an art book, the owl from another magazine. They are glued onto 8x10 inch illustration board with pastel papers as a background. A teacher from Pennsylvania says she is buying this one.

The center collage (8x10 inches on illustration board) looks like an AFTERNOON ROMP through the jungle. The body and the hat are part of a yellow lizard from Smithsonian magazine, as is the yawning leopard. The face is Julia Roberts, the ornaments are from a Chinese book. The legs came from Sports Illustrated. It took a long time for this collage to come together and I was very frustrated for a while but now I like it as much as any other. The big change came when I replaced the face of Anna Nicole Smith with that of Julia Roberts, cutting down Julia's face until I was satisfied with its look. Art is strange in the way disasters can turn to triumphs with the last few alterations (and of course the reverse is true also.) A friend is threatening to buy this collage but has not made up her mind yet.

The BIRTHDAY collage came from Newsweek Magazine for the woman, and an advertisement for the cake. The arms belong to Coretta Scott King from Modern Maturity Magazine. (I am a terror in doctors' waiting rooms, surreptitiously tearing out pages from magazines while I wait for my daughter in law to emerge from her maternity checkups.) This collage is 8x10 inches.

WINSTON CHURCHILL is mounted on top of a dancer's body, and he is fleshed out w/ a fountain pen from an advertisement. The elephonts came from the Smithsonian. The sun in the sky is a gold piece of jewelry from one of those museum magazines. 8x10 inches. I am selling this to a teacher in Pennsylvania.

Two MEN DANCING came from New York Magazine, the little angel is folk art, and the flowers are from a liquor advertisement. I made the marble paper at the bottom. I used different shades of pale pastel paper for the backgrounds of these collages. 8x10 inches.

In this 8x10 inch collage, the model "Iman" observes a cat and dog fighting beneath a sun painted by Dove. The dog and cat came from a book I picked up at the Jersey City Museum of dark animal paintings that looked like they needed a good cleaning. Whenever I look at this collage I think the dog and cat together look like a LION in the plains of Africa.

I don't remember the name of the photographer who took the lovely photo of the lady in fishnet stockings...and I dont remember where I cut out the photos of the two men in front. But I like the way they all look together. 8x10 inches. The same friend threatens to buy this one also.

Last but not least is a SHARK collage I made during a demonstration of collages in September, 2002. The shark came from the cover of National Geographic Magazine and the diver was from an advertisement in a magazine, I can't remember which.

My goodness. It has been two and a half years since I last did collages. My previous ones are lower down on this page.

These collages measure 8 by 10 inches and were made in March 2000. I am inspired by the work of Hannah Hoch, a German artist who worked in the Dada movement during the 1920's and 30's. Of course, there are many differences between my collages and hers. We all become ourselves in our art.

I used scissors to cut interesting bits of things from magazines and newspapers. Then I mounted them on archival illustration board using thin white glue called Rollataq that rolls on the back of the cutouts using an applicator that looks like a flat electric razor. Collages look easy but mine took a surprisingly long time for me to do. I finished only one or two a day and of course left the top of my living room table hopelessly cluttered.

I made ten new collages during a 6-day visit with my sister in Lawrence, Kansas in April, 2000. She was very glad to be able to clean up the mess in her living room when I was done.

Woman Warrior is 9 by 12 inches and was made from various magazines lying on my sister's coffee table. I sold this one to a Philadelphia lawyer and his wife.

Over The Hill is also 9 by 12 inches. The smiling man in the center is I.M. Pei, an architect in a photo from Modern Maturity magazine. The other faces are made up of cut up parts, and the tree is a dress pasted in upside down with a large flower as foliage. The same lawyer and wife bought this one, which was one of my favorites.

It's a Bird is also 9 by 12 inches.

The marblized paper in these collages was made by me about 20 years ago. As I recall, I thickened water with carrageen moss (that I bought at Talas Book Supply Store in NYC) then floated liquid colors on the surface of the water. Then I "combed" the floating colors by gently nudging them with a stick and when it looked interesting I dipped my paper into the mixture and picked up the colors in those lovely patterns. Not being technically proficient, however, my marbelized papers were far from perfect so these collages are an excellent way of using the parts of each sheet that were successful. This collage also went to Philadelphia.

These three collages are each made on 8 by 10 inch illustration board. I titled them after they were finished because I didn't know what the result would be when I started out working on them. I just leafed through magazines, cutting out various images and put them in a box. Eventually, something sort of "clicked" and two or three images seemed to go together. That's how a picture got started, and I'd keep on adding and arranging until it was done.

Pigs can Fly is one of my favorites and measures 8 by 10 inches. The face is a composite, and the flying pig is a composite from the Smithsonian magazine. I started with the coincidence of having a bronze pig cutout (with body and legs from two or three flying horses) and also a photo of a pig from a review of the movie, Babe. This collage lives in Philadelphia now.

Free at Last came to me because the dancing figure looks so happy. The head is Eleanor Roosevelt and most of her body is from Twyla Tharp, both cut out of Modern Maturity Magazine. The golden retriever on the ground is a photograph of my dog Ginger. I sold it in spring 2001 in New York City to a man but I forgot to write down his name.

Gotcha is the title of the collage on the right because the determined cowboy seems to have gotten ahold of either the woman's necklace or her shoulder, I'm not sure which. You may recognize the sculpture that makes up part of her body; it's by a famous French artist whose name escapes me. I sold this collage to a dealer of old prints in Baltimore, and his wife.

Strange Fruit is the title of the left collage. I thought of the title because the plum is very large but now realize that the song by Billie Holiday referred to lynching, and sometimes the term strange fruit refers to gays. I don't mind the ambiguity; the image evolved from my subconscious. There is a leg kicking out of the plum "tree" and an airplane buzzing around the sky over the heads of the two men. It measures 8 by 10 inches. Sold to Philadelphia couple.

When I made these collages, I didn't think very much about any of them; I just arranged things that seemed to go together in terms of color and size and theme. Thinking seems to get in the way of my art and sometimes I do my most satisfying work while talking on the telephone, so my art is sometimes like a "doodle" that seems to come from the side of my brain that is not "logical." I have sold all my collages now that it is summer 2001 but I plan to make more as soon as i have some space on my table and space on my calender.

True Love is a very sweet little collage, only 5 by 7 inches. I love the dancing figures, a famous sculpture by Nadelman. I sold it to the same Ct. woman who bought Home Sweet Home below.

He's Mine at Last is one of my favorite titles, from which you may surmise that I had "abandonment issues" in my childhood. In this collage, the woman warrior (with a doll's head) has caught a large moose. I'm not sure what the planted women's heads on the side represent but I like the way they look. I cut them out of the Reader's Digest and the other images probably came from Smithsonian magazine. This collage is 8 by 10 inches. I sold it in New York City in spring 2001 to a very nice man who was with some women. I forgot to write down his name, alas.

A Life Well Lived shows a person in a lawn chair in front of a house with a tiger baring his teeth from the side of a tree. I think the tiger represents life's perils, but it could also represent one's loved ones. The serene expression on the person in the chair belongs to Quenton Crisp who died last year at age 90. I thought he had a life well lived. I admired his performance as Queen Elizabeth in the movie Orlando that I saw on the IFC channel. I used to see Quentin Crisp in a coffee shop on Second Avenue at 5th Street in New York City. He was charming and accessible and he wore lavender eye shadow. The body in this collage belongs to another person I admire, the writer Jamaica Kincaid. This collage is 8 by 10 inches and is my favorite one so far. I sold it to a woman in Laurel, Md who loved it as much as I did. The Montclair Crafters Guild used it in a July 2001 newsletter.

Adrift has the figure of a Chinese diplomat floating in the ocean, marbelized paper that I made about 20 years ago. I think this collage is very restful to look at. The texture in the sky came from some sheer lace patterned rice paper that an acquaintance brought over from Japan. I sold it in 2000 to a Connecticut (I think) woman who found it very restful but I forgot to write down her name.

Sisters is an 8x10 collage that I made on Easter Sunday 2000 from two Renoir circus girls, a tiger from a magazine, and some flowers from a book that might have been by Redoute but maybe he did only the rose pictures. Sold to Philadelphia people.

I find it very relaxing to arrange pictures and textures that I find in different magazines. I wonder if this experience will influence my painting, for the better I hope. Collages are good practice for color and composition.

These are my most recent collages, made the last week of April, 2000.

A Day in the Park shows a man reading a book in the lower right hand corner. His face belongs to Eddie Fisher the actor, the arms came from a Maxfield Parrish illustration, and his pants come from a review of the movie, Babe. The collage is 8x10 inches, mounted on archival illustration board. I forget who bought this collage but I think it was a man. Some people are pleased to see that I use real paper and scissors because many collages nowadays are made via computer. That takes out some of the fun, in my opinion. Cutting and playing with paper is very tactile; gluing things down on illustration board gives me great sense of satisfaction and finality.

Home Sweet Home has a woman reclining under a tree with her dog and a house on the hilltop in the background. The woman is part of a painting by Robert Henri and the dog came from a dog food advertisement. The dog that makes up a hillside is my golden retriever, Ginger, waiting to be scratched. This collage is very small, only 5x7 inches. I sold this collage to a woman in Norwalk, Ct., but I don't remember her name. She bought two collages-- this one and also the 5x7" one called True Love.

The Patriot shows a famous photograph from the end of World War II but the man in the foreground is a famous guitar player whose name escapes me. His denim jacket decorated with sequins spelling out United States of America was taken off the back of a rock star whose name I also forget. The clouds are rice paper and this collage is 8 x 10 inches. I sold this nice collage to an artist who lives in Michigan but never got her name.

Take My Hand shows a greek or roman god swimming behind a woman in a bathing cap who offers him her hand. The jewel in the sky is supposed to represent the sun or the moon. This collage is 5 by 7 inches. I sold it but darned if I can remember to whom.

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Email marciasandmeyerwilson@gmail.com