Italian Shoes: A Woman Can Dream

This collage may look familiar to regular readers. It's an updated version of The Yearning, which I had been looking at for a while, rethinking it. My first impulse was to cut it down, but I resisted. Instead, I kept changing the title; it went from "The Yearning" to "Shoe Fetish" to "A Girl Can Dream" to "Italian Shoes: A Woman Can Dream."

But the other day, I was leafing through the Dec. 1940 issue of Ladies Home Journal searching for images for a food series and happened to glance up at the collage just as a shoe ad caught my eye. Aha moment! More shoes, that's what it needed. I added two that are bigger than the others and help direct the eye. Small change but a big difference. So, it remains the same size:  5.5" x 8.5" on archival mat board. {SOLD}

The Yearning

This is the newest piece in the Bubbling Over series mentioned the other day when I posted Damn. Clowns. That piece - also created just last week - was snapped up during Friday night's open studios but this one wasn't hung, because - well - I got behind on matting, etc. The engraving from The Chatterbox was titled "A Peep at Italy." It seemed to me that the woman was longing for something. I wasn't sure what, then, started thinking about Italian shoes.

One thing lead to another. The large circle contained an inset with another Italian scene, which was cut out - saved, of course, for future use - and a collection of shoes that are part of a vintage Andy Warhol fashion illustration was glued under the engraving. The remainder of the shoes are from a variety of sources,  from books, recycled greeting cards and an antique issue of Godey's Lady's Book. 5.5" x 8.5" on archival mat board with acrylic, ink and watercolor.

Damn. Clowns.

I was well into this piece before visiting the circus poster exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Museum. But didn't have nearly enough clowns in my stash. Yeah, who knew? So, I was giddy with excitement when I spotted the family guide to the exhibition and its surfeit of fantastic clowns. The rest of the group are from recycled greetings cards, and the vintage books "The Jack of All Trades or New Ideas for American Boys" (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1914) and "ABC & 123" (Whittlesey House/McGraw-Hill, 1955).

The piece is related to an earlier one, Olivia Sat Mesmerized as Jonathan's Libido Bubbled Over and is part of the new "Bubbling Over" series in which I re-imagine seemingly innocent Victorian illustrations (this one came from The Chatterbox children's magazine) in new - and, sometimes, scary - ways. Those who hate clowns will get my drift. Making more bubble pieces came about, because as I went through images I had set aside recently I noticed quite a few with circles or ovals that I planned to fill. 5.5" x 8.5" on archival mat board with acrylic, ink and watercolor. {SOLD}

Olivia Sat Mesmerized as Jonathan's Libido Bubbled Over

When I came across this illustration in an antique children's book, I wondered what the girl was thinking as she watched the boy blowing bubbles, then, what he was thinking. They each appear so proper and straight-laced that I couldn't resist the temptation to nudge them into naughtiness. The bubbles are painted with acrylic and hand-punched from a range of sources that include vintage postcards, antique ads and Andy Warhol fashion illustrations. The headline, from an issue of The Chatterbox magazine, was a serendipitous find. 5.5" x 7.5" on acid-free watercolor paper. {SOLD}