She's Making a List...

 Christmas is coming.  Making lovely things, looking at lovely things, lovely plans with lovely friends and lovely family...it's all good.  Hope you are happy with yours and them.

Studio Portraits

 A couple years ago I came across a box of vintage, hand-colored studio portraits.  Men, women, families, girls in confirmation dresses, all lovely.  I've had a lot of fun with them, and the box is still half full!

Some of the portraits I collaged and collected into a large accordion book called "Mask:"

A few others, two very attractive ladies and two sturdy gentlemen, I turned into quirky collage portraits.  Here they are:

Collabo-baby

 For many years my lovely friend Sabine Remy (Dusseldorf, Germany) and I have collaborated on a series of collage pieces.  One starts and then sends to the other to complete. No theme, no rules, no timetable, just whatever and whenever.  We have fun, and here are our three most recent efforts:

Collab #122 (Dream Girl, 2022) by Sabine Remy & Lynn Skordal

Collab #123 2023 (She) by Lynn Skordal & Sabine Remy

Collab #124 (2023) by Sabine Remy & Lynn Skordal (1945 Home Kinks)

Myth & Magic

 The Book as Art V. Myth & Magic is the 11th edition of an art show celebrating artist's books, which is on view at the Decatur Branch of the DeKalb County Public Library in Decatur, GA.  The organizers state:

Humans possess a fundamental attraction to stories and storytelling.  Folktales, fairy tales, and myths are foundational narratives that bridge the secular and the spiritual and merge the factual with the fantastical.  Art can challenge and disturb, restore peace and calm, uplift and inspire.  Myths and magic transport us and bind us together in the world of imagination.

Fifty artist's books will be on display in the Fourth Floor Gallery of the Library from September 7 through October 30.  I am very pleased to have one of  my accordion-style books about Greek mythology (Eternally Damned, 2017) included in this exhibition, and you can find out more about this wonderful exhibit here. 

Everything You Think Is Solid Can Disappear in a Heartbeat

 Working on some 12x12 collages for submission to a local exhibition.  Here's the first (have a little angst with your late summer...) (yes, I use ellipses a lot, I'm old...) (bite me, younger generation...):

Everything You Think Is Solid Can Disappear in a Heartbeat

2023, 12x12

(old studio portrait photographs, newspaper & book scraps, thread, watercolor pencil)

Artist's Books Wander Off

 It's summer and you can tell covid is over because there are lots of exhibitions in lots of places.  Here's where some of my pieces are spending the summer:

The University of South Dakota is exhibiting Bound and Unbound VII, an exhibition of altered books juried by that wonderful book artist, Brian Dettmer.  It runs from August 21, 2023 through January 3, 2004, and I am proud to have two books in this always fantastic exhibition.

A Little Bird Told Me

7.5"h x 4.5"w x .75"d, ten panels (2018)

Accordion-style altered book created from a mass-market

poetry book, tea bags, watercolor paper, inkjet images of vintage

snapshots, and book & magazine scraps.

I Love the Little Fishies

7.25"h x 4.75"w x 1", eight panels (2018)

Accordion-style altered book created in collaboration with Sabine Remy

of Dusseldorf, Germany, from a vintage German pocketbook, thread,

and magazine & book scraps.

Down at the beautiful Collins Library of the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma is the annual members' exhibition of Puget Sound Book Artists.  There is much talent in PSBA and the exhibition, as always, is a treat.  The theme for this exhibition was "Collaboration" and my piece is the cleverly-titled altered book called "A Book About Collaboration." (Sorry.)

A Book About Collaboration

Altered book, 10.75"h x 7.5"w x .5"d, 18 pgs (2023)

Vintage hard-cover book, newspaper/magazine/book scraps,

tissue paper, decorative paper, thread, pigmented gold wax, spray paint.

Out East in Rochester, NY, the Rochester Public Library will be offering its 12th annual "Art of the Book" show.  The exhibition will run from September 18, 2023, through January 6, 2024, and will feature artists' books, altered books, and paper sculpture.  My little altered book "Gustav Builds a Tower" will be included in what will be a very interesting show.

Gustav Builds a Tower

Altered book, 6.75"h x 4.75"w x 1.25"d, 68 pgs, (2019)

Vintage Italian paperback  book, Lokta paper, tissue paper, vintage snapshots,

gold pigmented wax, scarlet thread, book & magazine scraps.

Spotlight on BIMA

Bainbridge Island Museum of Art is opening its first-ever juried group exhibition -- BIMA Spotlight.  This is a salon-style show with works from a variety of Pacific Northwest artists filling the museum's two gallery floors, including paintings, prints, photography, sculpture, ceramic, glass and mixed media.  The exhibit runs June 30 - September 10, 2023, and I'm very happy to have my cyanotype fabric piece called honeysweetiebabygirl included in the show.  Please visit!!

honeysweetiebabygirl

Embellished cyanotype fabric panels

22"h x 25"w