Mysteries of the Season

Adoration 

 

God Poem

God Poem

cut & paste paper collage, 11x12"

 

Love Poem

Love Poem, cut & paste paper collage

7 x 9.5"

 

Water Poem

Water Poem, cut & paste paper collage

9.5 x 10.5", 2022

 

Collaborators Gotta Collaborate

 Sabine Remy, a talented collage artist living in Dusseldorf, Germany, has been one of my collaboration partners for many years now.  We may have slowed down a little (procrastinate much, Lynn?), but we recently completed our 122nd collage piece, and we continue to collaborate.  As always, one of us starts a collage, leaves it unfinished, and sends it to the other to complete.(The starter is listed first in the description, if you're curious.)

Here are a few of the more recent ones.

Collab #113 ("Tunnel Tree" 2021) by Lynn & Sabine

Collab #114 ("In a Strange Garden" 2021) by Sabine & Lynn

Collab #115 ("The World We Live In" 2021) by Lynn & Sabine

Collab #116 ("Surprised to See Me?" 2001) by Sabine & Lynn

Collab #121 ("The Earth and Moon in Space" 2022 by Lynn & Sabine

Collab #122 ("Dream Girl" 2022) by Sabine & Lynn

Cyanotypes

 Spent some time in North Carolina recently, at the John C. Campbell Folk School, learning the cyanotype process.  Great class, great teacher (Cindy Steiler).  Learned a lot and had much fun.  Also got Covid. Meh.

Cyanotype is a process in which you use the sun to create photographic images on specially-treated fabrics (or wood or glass or whatever) using "negatives" created from transparency sheets.  It's mad scientist territory -- stained aprons, long rubber gloves, chemicals and solutions.  Great fun.  You should stalk Cindy Steiler, find out where she's teaching her next class, and go there. Seriously.

Here's my first piece using some cyanotype panels I made out in North Carolina.  These panels are both negatives and positives of the same image created from an old photograph.  Some of the panels have been bleached and/or treated with tannic acid, and all of them are embellished with beading, old buttons, ribbons, lace, metal charms, embroidery and hand-cut letters.

sweetiehoneybabygirl

Six cyanotype panels 22"h x 25"w

PATHWAYS: How to get from here to there.

 I recently finished an altered book for the annual book exchange program sponsored by the Puget Sound Book Association.  PSBA chose the theme “Pathways,” and this little book highlights some of the creative ways we go down our pathways.  The original book was a soft-covered children’s book about the Spanish Conquistador Cabeza de Vaca, who was the leader of an ill-fated expedition into what is now Texas and the American Southwest in the early 1500’s (thereby selecting invading and conquering as his own personal method of going down the path).  Here are a few page views:

PATHWAYS: How to get from here to there.

OOAK altered book, 24 pgs, 8x6x.25 "

Materials: vintage children's book, newspaper & book scraps, spray paints.

Lynn Skordal, 2022

Pander, Lindsey, Pander

Senator Sycophant

Cut & paste paper collage, 8x10.5"

Lynn Skordal 2022

 

I Had That Dream Again

I had that dream again.

Lynn Skordal 2022

Paper collage on antique print

 

When Women Could Fly

An allegory...or maybe it's a metaphor...or maybe it's just a collage.

When Women Could Fly

Cut & paste paper collage

Lynn Skordal 2022

 

And in those days...

Eve, Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

Lynn Skordal, paper collage 2022

10"h x 9.5"w

 

Blackbird

He Couldn't Tell If He Was the Sky or the Blackbird

cut & paste paper collage, 11.5"h x 10.5"w

Lynn Skordal 2022

 

More Bangtan Boys...

 And here are the last two collages in my BTS series:

Actor Jin is staring into the small screen and the small screen is staring back.

V is creating his own sky full of stars.

BTS and Their Non-Hiatus.

 I am working on a new collage series to document what the beautiful boys of BTS are doing on their recently-announced hiatus breather.  Whatever.  These are all cut & paste paper collages, 12x12."  Here are the first five, two more to come.  (Yes, I am part of ARMY.  I LOVE these guys -- they are talented, decent human beings, and vastly increase the amount of joy in the world.  Plus they are all cuter than the dickens.)

 Jimin is dancing at the edge of the world.

Suga is contemplating the Universe.

RM is feeling the rain again.

Jungkook is singing with some new friends.

J-Hope is exploring some darker corners.

BTW, you can tell Suga and Jimin (and maybe Jungkook, if he wants) that I am willing to serve as their American Grandmother, if they need one.  The rest of you lot, I love you, but you'll have to get your own American Grandmother.  Sorry.

I Be Stylin

 I added one of my recent collages to the back of my jean jacket this afternoon...

...it looks good!

Exhibition News

 I have books vacationing on both coasts right now:

The 11th Annual Members' Exhibition of Puget Sound Book Artists has been installed in the lovely Collins Library of University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA and will be available for in-person viewing June 6 - August 5, 2022.  I have two books in the exhibit:  The Age of Reason, a 2020 book reflecting my pessimistic view of America as revealed during the Covid pandemic...

...and GHOSTS AND SHADOWS, an album of altered photographs, which begins with text from an imaginary novel:  "All memories are fiction, Martin; all photographs are lies."

Meanwhile, out on the East Coast, the Rochester Public Library in Rochester, NY, is getting ready to open its annual Art of the Book & Paper Exhibit, which will be on view from June 27 - November 1, 2022.  They have a wonderful selection of books and paper sculpture, and I'm proud that three of my books have been accepted into this exhibit:

A Little Bird Told Me

Roundup: The Class of 1929

Whither

 

Mare Boreum

Recently-completed collage piece called Mare Boreum, (Northern Sea), which refers to an area near the north pole of Mars, a region that appears as darkness when viewed telescopically from Earth.

Mare Boreum (Northern Sea) 2022

11x14  (magazine cutouts & something I found on the ground)

 

Hopes and prayers...BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.

 Here we are again, America.  Another school massacre. And once again the only "civilized" country in which this regularly happens throws up its hands in despair and offers hopes and prayers to the little victims and their grieving families. Enough with the hopes and prayers, America, enough with the public hand-wringing, could we finally do something?

Go ask Mitch McConnell why he cares more about preserving the filibuster rules and catering to the gun lobby than the lives of school kids.

Go ask Texas Governor Greg Abbott why he cares more about enacting "the strongest Second Amendment legislation in Texas history" than the lives of 19 fourth graders.

Go ask Republican lawmakers why they are more worried about catering to pro-gun interests than passing common-sense measures like background check requirements, assault weapon bans, and restrictions on high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Go ask responsible gun owners why they put up with this crap.

Go ask the US Supreme Court why they are poised to strike down a New York law that limits the carrying of guns outside the home.

Go ask America why this epidemic of gun violence doesn't happen in any other country on earth, why since the tragic Sandy Hook massacre almost ten years ago American has MORE guns and FEWER protections, and why, despite all these dead children, we don't seem to care enough to do something about it.

  

Yeah, been here before...

I'm sorry.

watercolor pencil & pen on ink-jet print

5.16.2022

 

Collage on View

 The Northwest Collage Society is sponsoring two different collage exhibitions in the Seattle area this month, both offering a good look at what Northwest collage artists are up to these days.

COLLAGES: SMALL WORKS, featuring more than 100 works by more than 40 artists is on view at the Frances Anderson Center Arts Festival Gallery, at 700 Main Street, in the lovely little town of Edmonds, WA, through May 10, 2022.  These are fun little collages, each no larger than 5x7 inches, and I am honored to have three pieces included.

Above, "Instructions for Set J", "Snapshot", and "Various Causes of Humming."

COLLAGE AT THE LODGE is the annual Spring Exhibit of NWCS, and is showing this year at a wonderful hotel, The Lodge at St. Edward Park, 14477 Juanita Drive NE, Kenmore, WA, from March 3 through May 29, 2022.  The Lodge is a beautifully-restored former seminary located in the middle of a large park -- a lovely place to stroll around and enjoy some art!  The exhibition includes 80 works by more than 50 artists, and I am pleased that two of my pieces are included.

Five Paper Plates

Hatchlings

Boundless

 Over at the wonderful Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (BIMA) is a major exhibition of artists' books entitled "Boundless." A beautiful and varied collection of artists' books from 76 book artists around the world fill the Rachel Fefferman and Sherry Grover Galleries on the upper floor of the Museum.  The exhibit runs from March 4 - June 22, 2022, and I am honored that my recent book "Silence" is included.  Please pay a visit in person to 550 Winslow Way East, Bainbridge Island, WA, and maybe catch a wonderful bite to eat in BIMA's tasty cafe while you're there!

Front cover and several interior pages from "Silence," 2020, by Lynn Skordal

32 pgs, 16"h x 13.5"w, Materials include inkjet-printed tissue paper and book scraps for the interior pages, commercially-produced deckle-edged paper and printed translucent mulberry paper for the covers.

This book is about silence -- where we find it and what it means.