The opening reception for my show (with ceramic artist Michelle Gallagher) at Guardino Gallery, was on Thursday, July 25. It was a warm evening and lots of people were out enjoying art and the festivities of Last Thursday on Alberta.
The official photos:
The unofficial photos:
Thank you to everyone who came out for the opening and for those who have been visiting since the show opened.
My show is hung. After working on a variety of pieces over the past year and a half, I can take a deep breath and revel in the accomplishment of creating a body of work and getting to share it at Guardino Gallery. All of the pieces I have been working on for this show have been created out of old books. My Artist Statement pretty much says it all:
Dayna Collins has always loved old books. She hyperventilates at the sight of books which are stained, defaced, torn or marked up. She rips battered books apart, reclaiming their faded fragments, and creates collages using only materials she has excavated. Dayna’s mixed media pieces reflect the passage of time, repurposing the scraps that are worn and weathered, transforming the aged and tattered pieces into something unexpected and beautiful, celebrating their fragile decay.
Here’s the tiniest glimpse of what has been going on over the past 18 months:
Then it became time to begin putting the pieces together into some sort of format for presentation. I ended up using six different formats.
Then there was the Herculean task of titling, mounting, photographing, inventorying, and packing. There were a few hiccups with the floating and the mounting, but after a few tears, I nutted up and found a solution.
It was fun to work in so many styles, using the same materials to create entirely different looks. Unfortunately, it was a challenge for Donna and Gail to hang such disparate styles of work. But they did a magnificent job and created combinations I never would have imagined.
One of my favorite things about having a show at Guardino (this is my fourth one!), is designing the window. As soon as I got notice that I would have a show in July, I started plotting and planning for the window.
It turned out just as I had hoped.
The show opens on Thursday, July 25, from 6-9 pm. I’m sharing the Feature Gallery with my friend and fellow artist, Michelle Gallagher, who has created a delightful series of ceramic corvids. Their dark beauty compliment my pieces perfectly and we were excited to share this show. Michelle took some great photos, so here is a peek at our show. . . . hopefully this will entice you out tomorrow night for a summer evening of merriment and refreshments (and to experience Last Thursday on Alberta).
PS Last weekend our local YMCA had their final book sale in their old building. Of course, I was there first thing on Friday morning, restocking my art supplies . . . .
At a recent art retreat with the Salem Art Group on the Oregon Coast, Bonnie brought everyone a small handmade blank journal to fill as we chose. I think this is the fourth (or fifth?) journal Bonnie has provided as we have retreated together over the years. I filled the pages of this little journal with scraps from deconstructed books. (I brought tons of material to work on collages mounted onto worn and well used book boards, so I had plenty of random and leftover fodder to create a tiny journal of Salvage Collages.)
A random selection of my pages.
I plan to use these pages as inspiration for future Salvage Collages mounted on discarded book boards.
The Salem Art Group now has ten members, the most we have ever had, but when just the right people appeared, we couldn’t say no. Twice a year our group retreats: in the spring we head to the Oregon coast, and in the summer, we head east to a cabin on the Metolius River. With ten members, we have to get a bit more creative with sleeping arrangements, but somehow we manage. A couple of weeks ago we found our way to Culver City, just south of Lincoln City, and on the Siletz Bay.
We all set up stations and worked on whatever we wanted.
Afternoon walks often occur, either in groups or on solo adventures.
We each bring our own breakfast and lunch, but every night we go out for a nice dinner. The first night we veered a little off of our formula and had dinner at a bowling alley, but it was a cool place with an unusually tasty menu. Of course, we reserved two lanes and bowled. No one had bowled for years, including myself, but somehow I managed to bowl an impressive 158!
During our days, I worked on a series of Salvage Collages on book boards, using pieces and parts of deconstructed vintage discarded books to create the collages.
We’re already counting down the days for our next retreat.
There is no doubt about it, creating my Salvage Collage mixed media pieces are time-consuming and messy work. First is the collecting of vintage books (worthy of a separate post), then the dismantling of the books (another separate post). When all of the collecting and ripping apart has been done, it is time to slog through the piles, looking for just the right scraps to create something new. All of the pieces I use in my collages are from discarded books that have been ripped apart and disassembled – from the linen covers, to the gluey spines, to the book boards themselves.
Eventually it is time to stop sorting and auditioning and actually glue the pieces into place.
Meanwhile, I’m off to the YMCA annual book sale because today is the final day and all books are $5 a box!
I am excited to announce that I will be having a Salvage Collage mixed media art exhibit at Guardino Gallery in August of 2019. I have already started working on a series of collages for the show, but somewhere along the way I became obsessed with grids. And circles. And circle grids. I have purchased circle punches ranging from teeny tiny to jumbo sized. All of my Salvage Collage pieces for this show are created from deconstructed, decaying, vintage, falling apart books. Here’s a peek at a recent piece I worked on in my studio last week. This one is being created using book scraps and the completed collage will be mounted onto a book cover. (You can see some circles have crept into this piece……)
My fascination with grids goes back a number of years, so when I started cutting out little blocks of color from discarded and deconstructed books, it wasn’t surprising that I started to create grids.
After cutting out a variety of squares, I started experimenting with adding shapes for more visual interest. Both of these pieces are still in the auditioning stage, but once I start gluing, I will fine tune the final composition.
It was a short leap from squares to circles and that is when my obsession kicked into high gear.
And so it goes. Ripping, tearing, punching, repeat. Periodic updates on my project can be found on my Instagram page: DaynaLovesArt.
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.
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.
Okay, Colin actually did the hanging, while Steph and I gallivanted around Astoria.
The Salem Art Group makes an annual pilgrimage to Camp Sherman every summer thanks to the hospitality and generosity of Katy, who invites us to stay at her family cabin, which is located right on the Metolius River on Forest Service land. It is quiet, remote, and there is no cell service or WIFI, making for the perfect art venue.
This year, seven of our 10 members were able to attend, and after sorting out who would sleep where, unpacking our coolers of food, and setting up our art-making spaces, we all settled in for the business and fun of making art, chatting, and eating. Art making happened during the day, late into the night, and early in the morning, necessitating moving around to chase light, avoid heat, or to stay warm. It was all part of the art dance.
The food. We ate really well thanks to creative cooks and eating the bounty of summer. One evening, Susan prepared a beautiful dinner for everyone, one morning Jessica made pancakes with homemade blueberry syrup. I brought along a little container of cold brew.
The art. We all worked on individual projects throughout the week. A couple of people stitched, a few painted, all but two of us sketched pretty much all of the time. I didn’t sketch, but I did get sketched!
My art project for this year was to work on four Salvage Collage pieces for an upcoming show at RiverSea Gallery in Astoria. I lugged bins of book scraps, a box of book covers, and dozens of covers from pulp fiction novels. I set my space up on the deck, under cover, with a view of the Metolius River.
Every year, Bonnie makes little blank journals for us and during the time we are together, we each work on our individual journals, usually in the evening and after we have moved inside. From a blank book to crammed pages!
Some of us used bits and pieces from a central collage pile to create books. For me, I used pieces of discarded books I was working with during my week. Here are my pages:
Several of us went for a hike every day, with Katy leading us in all different directions.
It was a great week and I returned rested and reinvigorated, and already looking forward to next summer.
How do I put into words my experience earlier this month. Imagine spending five days with artists who all love ripping apart old books. Fold in an instructor with mad teaching skills. It didn’t hurt that the class was held in the center of Whidbey Island at the Pacific Northwest Art School. The class was titled Making Abstract Art from Discarded Books and the instructor was Sante Fe book artist, Melinda Tidwell.
In the spirit of using few words, I’ll share a series of photos with captions in my attempt to convey how I spent my week and some of the work I created.
This pieces I created in this class fit nicely with my What’s Your Story project as well as my Salvage Collage pieces. Now I’m ready to start doing a better job of ripping apart my vintage books.
Once a quarter, on the second Thursday of the month, Studios at the Mill host Art After Dark where we fling open our doors, serve refreshments, and celebrate the arts in our neck of the woods.
We are located on the second floor of the Wool Warehouse at the Willamette Heritage Center, which is across the street from both the Amtrak station and Willamette University, in the heart of Salem. We have 10 artists and everyone opened their door on the evening of April 12th. My studio is located in the NW corner, overlooking the Mill Stream, which runs through the WHC campus. Here’s one of my windows looking up from the outside.
I use my studio at the Mill for special projects since my painting studio is at my home. I love having a space devoted to working with paper, ephemera, book covers, black and white photos, and scraps . . . . all of which I call Salvage Collage.
Of course, I spruced up my space for this quarterly event. It is ever evolving and I love moving things around, touching everything, hanging things, and getting side tracked auditioning various pieces for ongoing projects. Here are photos of my spiffed up studio:
It is always more fun when people are added to the mix.
Our next Art After Dark is Thursday, July 12, 6-8 pm. If you’d like to be added to our studio newsletter e-mailing list, please send me your e-mail address: dayna@alleyartstudio.com