Flea Markets – Dayna J Collins

Brooklyn Travel Journal

We spent the last two weeks of September in Brooklyn, New York, so of course I logged our trip with a Salvage Collage junk journal.

I didn’t make my own journal, but used one created by my friend Laurie at Black Dog Studio. It came with a nice variety of papers, including some heavy watercolor paper, so I was able to adhere all kinds of papers, post cards, street fliers, and whatever paper materials I could scrounge. It was a bit more challenging on this trip because during a pandemic, there isn’t as much print material as usual. But being the scrounger and junker that I am, I managed to cobble together a pretty interesting journal.

We rented a tiny Airbnb apartment in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. I set up my make do studio on a tiny desk in the corner of the tiny bedroom with a nice view of the fire escape and the Manhattan skyline in the distance.

I hunted and gathered each day, my piles of possible fodder growing and expanding, and I used the bed as a place to sort.

Every night after a day of exploring Brooklyn (or Manhattan), I returned to our apartment, where I cut and pasted the scraps I gathered during the day, into my journal. The journal began to take on a life of its own. I didn’t keep a chronological travelogue, or even write about our days. I just ripped, cut, and glued, creating a collaged journal with visual reminders of our first big trip in three years.

On our return trip, we turned a two hour layover in San Francisco into a three day layover (so I could see the Joan Mitchell exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art). My travel journal just kept growing, setting up my studio on the desk in the corner of our hotel room.

Beachcombing With a Twist

Continue reading Beachcombing With a Twist

Poor Little Discarded Orphans

In my last post, New Studio? Almost . . . ., I wrote about revamping my studio and the need to clear out a long shelf of my creepy, vintage, broken, disheveled dolls (and doll heads). I wasn’t ready to get rid of them, but it didn’t make sense to put them in bins and store them in the shed. The dolls are my thing, not Howard’s, so I decided to live with them a while longer and the best place to do that was in my office. I began the arduous task of going through all of the dolls that I had removed from the shelves (okay, maybe I played with them for a little bit).

I found some low profile shelves and ordered two sets. Howard got them installed pretty quickly, and I began deciding which dolls would make the cut. My favorite dolls are the ones with movable eyes and little teeth, and I had collected plenty of those over the years.

If you are creeped out by cracked, crazy-eyed, and overly loved dolls, you might not want to continue, but if you are intrigued by such a motley cast of characters, here are some of my favorites.

Handmade Journal: The Great Pause (Part 1)

In mid March, all hell started to break loose as the Corona Virus began to consume our lives in one way or another. On Monday, March 23, Governor Brown mandated a statewide stay at home order. March 23 was the day I decided to create a journal where I could record not only what was taking place around the world and in Oregon, but also for me tucked safely inside my home. What was my new life going to look like in the upcoming weeks, or perhaps months.

The first thing I did was to make a journal using an old book and then gathering lots of paper fodder. I used book pages, music, scraps from torn apart books, and pieces of random papers, post cards, and handbills from my collage stash.

Once my papers were gathered, I bound the book using waxed linen thread and began embellishing the pages with scraps and raggedy book bits. Every day I would go through my journal and add interesting pieces to several pages, put wax paper between the pages, weigh it down overnight, and then come back the next day and do it all over again to different pages. I did this process of turning the pages and adding more day after day for three weeks.

Finally, on Monday, April 13, I declared that my journal was ready, the pages prepared.

At the same time, throughout the past three weeks, I have been writing notes to myself and making lists about the pandemic: sleeping in, routines, gift of time, rhythm of the day, tooth pain, sporty sneakers, oral surgery, helpless, daily walks, fake news, megalomaniac, self care, roller coaster . . . . .

I have printed things I have read: a poignant poem, a particularly good article on adjusting to how to live during this strange time, the timeline of how our president has fumbled and mismanaged the entire pandemic since the beginning. All things I feel inspired to record, share on my pages, or use as jumping off points for processing the range of emotions I have been feeling.

For now, I’m sharing a sampling of my pages before I make any entries, do any writing, make any lists, record poems and timelines, letting the beauty of the collages and materials speak for themselves.

Did I mention when I made the first journal that I made two more at the same time!?! What was I thinking?

Willamette University Exhibition: Salvage Collage – A Sort of Magic

I’m pleased to share that I currently have an exhibition of my Salvage Collages at Willamette University’s Hatfield Library. My show, Salvage Collage: A Sort of Magic, is on view through January 20, 2020. It is always a thrill to show at the library, where I used to work 20 years ago.

Leading up to my exhibition, I was feverishly creating new work and revamping some old pieces to give them new life.

On the day of hanging, I used book carts to get my boxes and suitcases to the second floor of the Hatfield Library.

Then I spread everything out and began the process of stacking books in the cases and auditioning where to put the assorted Salvage Collages.

After a couple of hours, my work was complete.

The public is welcome to visit the library (and my exhibit) during library hours.The best place to park is on State Street, where there is metered parking (Willamette is located right across the street from the State Capitol). While you are at the library, check out the Pacific Northwest Artists Archives, which is right next to the two cases where my exhibition is. There is also some great art on the first and second floors by regional artists.

Scrounged Beauty: The Opening

Here we are the day of our show opening, stopping by for a final sneak peek since we hadn’t yet seen our scrounged letters hanging above the word beauty. We loved it. We spent the day tromping all over Astoria, took a short rest, then returned at 5:00 to celebrate our opening for the rest of the evening.

Final formal photos of Stephanie and me.

Once the guests began to arrive, it was a riot of activity, laughter, fun, chatter, music, visiting, drinking, eating, and general merriment as people came and went, lingered, wandered, stopped back for another look and chat. Stephanie and I were blown away by how many of our friends drove from out of town: Seattle, Salem, Portland, and Albany.

After the last guest drifted away, a group of friends joined us for dinner across the street at Fulio’s and we lingered late into the evening, basking in the afterglow of a successful show and opening party.

Scrounged Beauty

Years of Collecting

After years of being junking partners, my friend Stephanie Brockway and I are doing a show together at RiverSea Gallery in Astoria. Both of us have shown our work at RiverSea for years, and Stephanie had a solo show there a couple of years ago. I show paintings, she shows a combination of paintings and outsider folk art. Scrounged Beauty is found object art, highlighting the best of our collections of found objects, and as some would say, junk.

Months of Auditioning

I spent months pulling things out of drawers, bins, bowls, and trays, choosing which pieces to try out on various pieces of reclaimed wood and prepared boards.

Weeks of Connecting, Titling, Signing, and Photographing

A Day of Hanging

Okay, Colin actually did the hanging, while Steph and I gallivanted around Astoria.

A Sampling of My Pieces (out of 42 I have in the show!)

“Delightful Daydreams,” by Dayna J. Collins

“Giddyup, Little One Trick Pony,” by Dayna J. Collins

“Obscured Thoughts,” by Dayna J. Collins

“A Whisper of Conspiracy,” by Dayna J. Collins

“Drawn Into Memory,” by Dayna J. Collins

“Daily Interactions,” by Dayna J. Collins

“The Tiniest Things Mean Something,” by Dayna J. Collins

“Most Expedient Route,” by Dayna J. Collins

“Painstaking Exactitude,” by Dayna J. Collins

“Traveling Side Show,” by Dayna J. Collins

“Seeing Through Shadows,” by Dayna J. Collins

“Little Time to Talk,” by Dayna J. Collins

“Untroubled By Disturbing Dreams,” by Dayna J. Collins

“Staring Into the Distance,” by Dayna J. Collins

THE SHOW

If anyone had ever told me I would get to the Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market . . . .

. . . . I would not have believed them. But it happened last Sunday.

We were on vacation in Los Angles last week to see an uncle, visit museums, art galleries, and just do some general tromping about. The sites we wanted to visit were divided by neighborhoods to minimize the time spent in the car. On a whim, right before we left for the airport, I googled “flea markets.” The Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market, of course, popped up. It is held one Sunday of the month. Guess which Sunday it was being held? (Insert gasping and hyperventilating.)

We arrived early (they have different entrance times and prices, we were there by 8:00 am), got our bearings, and set off for the Orange Area: Antiques and Collectibles. This was important because there are 2,500 booths, so we needed to narrow our focus.

My focus for the market was black and white photos, paper debris, and any sort of ephemera; I rounded up a smattering of everything.But the mother lode was a scrapbook I saw, walked away, then had to go back and purchase.

The scrapbook belonged to Virginia Anita Bugg, and chronicled her early 1930s high school experience on through getting engaged and married. The scrapbook was crammed and crumbly, so when I got home I carefully deconstructed each page into categories: letters, photos, gum wrappers, menus, ticket stubs, dance cards . . . . I even discovered a smashed celluloid doll toward the back. Take a look: