Mixed Media – Page 6 – Dayna J Collins

Salvage Collages: In a tiny handmade journal

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.)

Front cover of my tiny Salvage Collage journal.

A random selection of my pages.

Back cover of my Salvage Collage journal.

I plan to use these pages as inspiration for future Salvage Collages mounted on discarded book boards.

Salvage Collage: Creating Book Board Collages

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!

UPDATE: I got SIX boxes of books. I can’t wait to begin ripping them apart!

Daily Art Practice: Visual Painting Journal

I decided to shake things up a bit when I hung my 2019 calendar, thinking I would paint a quick abstract each day in my visual journal. Who knows how long I will maintain this practice, but so far, so good, and today is January 25th.

I’ve learned a couple of things along the way. First, it is fun to paint quickly, loose, and free, for no reason other than the joy of painting. And second, as a result of painting quick, loose, and free, I have several ideas for bigger paintings!

My acrylic painting station in my studio. Photo taken the morning of January 25.

No need to share every daily painting, but here’s a random selection.

My journal is 9×9 inches, mixed media paper, and spiral bound so it lays flat when it is open. I’ve been using Golden acrylics, a black Stabilo pencil, sharp pointy objects for scritching and scratching, Stabilo Woody 3 in 1 Stabilo pencils, a paintbrush, occasional stamps and stencils, a No.2 pencil, and a palette knife.

Palette paper for the week ending January 25.

Salvage Collage: Obsessed With Circles and Grids

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.

Tapestry of Resilience: A Visual Journal

We’re back from our six-week plus trip and my blank pages are now plump with found fodder, scrounged materials, a few photos, and lots of writing describing our adventures.

I posted on my personal (and public) Facebook page throughout our trip (Dayna Davidson Collins), so I’m not sharing about any of the trip. What I am sharing are some of the pages from my travel visual journal. In my last blog post, I shared that all of my pages (104 of them) had been pre-gessoed and painted, so all I took in the way of art supplies was a pair of scissors, a jar of matte gel medium, a paintbrush, a brayer, wax paper, and three gel pens – black, white, and red; all my supplies fit in a zip lock baggie.

The daily routine went something like this:

We set out for a day of exploring, hoping to easily find the Tourist Information office so I could gather brochures. Sometimes we weren’t near a TI, so the hunt was on for paper fodder. Art museums were good for brochures, and often their tickets were large and had beautiful art images on them, but there didn’t seem to be as much paper materials as there has been in the past. In a pinch, I bought a bookmark or a couple of post cards so I had images to incorporate onto my pages. Or I picked up bits and pieces of trash or pulled down chunks of posters.

At the end of the day and after dinner, I sat at my makeshift desk or on the bed and cut up images and words to use on my pages. I would make a list of everything we did and saw and began gluing things onto the pages; each day had a two-page spread. I glued, brayered, cleaned up the gluey edges, placed a piece of wax paper over the pages, and weighted them down with whatever was heavy and handy.

In the morning while sipping my cappuccino (which my sweet husband faithfully fetched), I removed the weights and wax paper, grabbed my gel pens, and referring to the list I made the previous day, wrote in and around the images I had glued, recounting what we had done and added details I thought were interesting.

Here are a few photos of me at various points of our trip, working on my pages.

Working at a table in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Sneak attack as I worked at my desk in our Berlin, Germany apartment.

The Pages. As I mentioned, my travel journal has 104 pages, so I’ll share a sampling of my two-page spreads, in no particular order.

When we got home, I had a few blank pages remaining, so I printed off some photos, inserted those on the last pages, then added my completed travel journal to a stack of pages from previous trips.

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

Art Retreating on the Metolius River

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.

Art After Dark: July Open Studios

I’m fortunate to be a member of a group of 11 artists who share the second floor of the Wool Warehouse at the Willamette Heritage Center. We call our space: Studios at the Mill. We have been together in various forms (in various studios) for the past four years. My space is always evolving depending on my latest project. What remains the same for now is this is my Special Projects Studio, where I house all of my ephemera, vintage books, and oodles of photographs.

Initially, we hosted Open Studios on a monthly basis, but after a few years, that got to be too much, so for the past couple of years we host Art After Dark Open Studios quarterly. Last night was our July event. On the second Thursday of our chosen month, we all fling open the doors to our studio, serve wine, sparkling water, and lots of food – savory and sweet. Our studio member Jim Hockenhull often has his wife, Jo, join him in providing us with music and last night they played and people danced. We also asked Steve, who owns a new restaurant at the Willamette Heritage Center, Krewe du Soul, if he would serve samples of his Cajun fare. He agreed and for two hours offered samples of jambalaya and gumbo; there were lots of people walking the halls with smiles on their faces. To best share our event, here are photos I took of people throughout the evening.

For our next Art After Dark Open Studios, we’re mixing it up a bit and it will be held a month later on: Thursday, November 8, 2018.

Salvage Collage: “Making Abstract Art From Discarded Books”

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.

Auditioning pieces for a possible composition.

“A Shattered Sense of Normality,” by Dayna J. Collins.

“The Dim Veil of Sleep,” by Dayna J. Collins

“Looking Backward in Time,” by Dayna J. Collins.

“Laughing with Genuine Pleasure,” by Dayna J. Collins

“Rebellious Tendencies 1 and 2,” by Dayna J. Collins

“Occasional Flashes of Kitsch,” by Dayna J. Collins.

“Deep Urgent Conversations,” by Dayna J. Collins.

“A Truth Profound and Simple,” by Dayna J. Collins.

“A series of Small Coincidences,” by Dayna J. Collins.

“The Possibility of Change,” by Dayna J. Collins.

“The Pale Thin Light,” by Dayna J. Collins.

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.

Restorative Painting: The Architecture of Memory

I met Pat Wheeler at the Oregon College of Art and Craft (OCAC) in 2009. I had signed up for her The Architecture of Memory: Paintings and Constructions class, using plaster, acrylics, and cold wax. I was hooked. I proceeded to take Pat’s class for several years to hone my skills, but also to be in Pat’s presence and experience her energy, passion, and welcoming spirit. Pat and I became friends and I view Pat as an important mentor in my art journey.

A week ago, I received an email from Pat, asking if I could step in for her and teach both of her Pacific Northwest classes: one at OCAC and the other at Sitka. I was humbled, honored, and a bit overwhelmed. Plans were set in motion. Pat wrote a letter to her enrolled students and class descriptions were revised. Pat and I were in steady contact, collaborating on how I could best represent her in the classes, while bringing my own interpretation and teaching style to the classes.

I was out of town during all of this, taking a class on Whidbey Island. Throughout the week, I was furiously writing myself lists, making notes, reading Pat’s messages and her sources of inspiration. My version of the class began to take shape, starting with Pat’s process, folding in the way I have used Pat’s original process, yet made it my own. I’ve taught my own version of the plaster class myself, but somehow, stepping in for Pat, has a certain reverence to it.

If you aren’t familiar with the process, it is a wonderful experience. Here’s a snippet from the class description:

Dayna works in layers, revealing color, texture, and what came before. Using paint, plaster, charcoal, graphite, scraping, sanding, staining, writing, concealing, and revealing, Dayna will take everyone on a journey of discovery, building up a surface, then tearing a portion away, never fully revealing what came before. Look closely and you’ll see word fragments and decomposing texture. Dayna intentionally utilizes the concept of pentimento, where traces and shadows of earlier layers of paintings are revealed.

A few shots from various stages of the process.

Registration is now open at both OCAC (class runs May 30-June 3) and Sitka (class runs from June 5-June 8). If you have any questions about the classes or the process, please email me: dayna@alleyartstudio.com

I will miss seeing Pat this year, but I’m looking forward to her return to the Pacific Northwest next year.