Mary Richmond Design

Day 7, Art Every Day

This little collage is my entry for Day 7. It is weaker than I would like it to be. It is something I've had rolling around in my mind for a long time and although I like the placement and scale of the people I think I would like them to be developed differently.

It's interesting gluing down these old photos because part of me has a little bit of panic about it. Oh no, I'm ruining this picture! But the truth is these pictures were all in a box of reject pictures, pictures that never made it into an album.

I love this little photo, even though it's sort of random at best. My grandmother took it and she was well known for missing the moment, cutting off people's heads or half their bodies in the picture plane. The focus of this picture, according to the writing on the back, was my mother opening a gift. What she got, of course, was my dad playing with us kids and the dog.

This photo was taken when I was 4 and my sister was 1. The dog is Liza, my first and most wonderful friend and companion. When I was around 8 she kept me from being hit by a car by stepping in front of me and pushing me back in the yard. My mother, who witnessed this, never got over it and Liza was a heroine for the rest of her days.

Here is a close up of one part of the collage and drawing.

I just realized as I was getting ready to post this that I am posting it on the anniversary of my parents' failed marriage oh so many years ago.

My parents were divorced (after several separations) when I was 10. Both went on to have long and successful second marriages.

Days 5 & 6, Art Every Day

This is the drawing I did for Day 5. It's very quiet and simple. I did up a bunch of these watercolor washes to work ink over, which is new for me and I sort of like the way it works together. I think I'll be playing with this idea some more. It seems like a nice way to pull the surity of the line together with the dreaminess of the wash.

This is yesterday's drawing with an old photo, not exactly a collage but the beginnings of an idea.

The photo is of my grandmother, great grandmother, mother and myself (at 2!) and the drawing is an idea I've had knocking around of using the faces I draw with a family tree branching out of a dream, integrated with actual photos.

It has a long way to go but then sketches are for working out ideas, yes?

Here's a close up of the photo, which is still pretty vague. I like that about it, though. It adds to the dreamy, uncertain quality of it.

Here is a close up of the drawing itself.

This project has been great so far. I am finally back in the studio every day and feeling excited about working again. It's also been great fun seeing what other people are doing. I'll be posting some more links here soon.

Day 4, Art Every Day

My grandmother kept wonderful scrapbooks and photo albums and had many from her teenage years and as a young adult. Her friends and family dominate the pages as do pictures of places she was lucky enough to visit. She was third generation Irish (her great grandmother came over on a boat during the potato famine) in McKeesport, PA. Her family was poor and her own mother gave her up to her sister and she was raised by her childless aunt and uncle. Her uncle/dad was a coal miner with a tendency to drink up his paycheck on Friday afternoons and it was her job to go fetch him from the bar and bring him home. He would loop one arm in hers and carry a bucket of beer in the other.

My grandmother told lots and lots of stories and I was lucky to have a long and wonderful relationship with her.

I love that this picture of her on the porch shows off her famous long legs. The story goes that she was walking down the hall at work (she was a secretary for the first radio station at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh!) when her husband to be looked up and said "Who do those beautiful legs belong to?"

Day 3, Art Every Day

This is the first collage I put together from the photos, scrap books and sheet music that I have from my mom and grandmother. I have enough material to cover a good part of the world in collages, by the way, but it seemed like a good way to begin the process by doing at least one a day for this month. Who knows where it will lead? I have had the idea for several years that I would like to use these materials in art work. There is too much to save as individual albums and boxes of articles, pictures, sheet music, etc. which are frail and yellowing.

My mother and grandmother kept lots of scrapbooks, many of movie stars and as I began this collage of my mother I found the sheet music to "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody" and decided to use pictures of her intermingled with some of the movie star pictures.

In my mother's family she was the older, smart daughter who didn't get "the looks" and she was told all her life she needed to use her brains and personality to get along in the world. Her younger sister was beautiful and told she didn't need to develop her brains or personality since she didn't need to do anything but look pretty.....they both suffered from this as you might imagine.

Anyway, I'm using this sheet music to make some family based collages. I tried to post this on Saturday but lost power while trying to post. We just got power back this morning. I will post yesterday's and today's collages later today.

Making art always takes you funny places. I found this collage leading me to a statement on marriage, or the time's beliefs about marriage for a woman, and the written pieces illustrate that.

It's amazing how many women of this generation (my mom was born in 1932) made it through all their early brainwashing and conditioning to make good lives and careers for themselves. They raised their own daughters to be brave and strong and to go out into the world. Our own daugthers seem to take all their choices for granted.

When I look at all these old pictures it reminds me how far we've come but also how not so long ago this really was! I look forward to sharing the rest of this project!

Art Every Day 2

Here's my second day's piece for Art Every Day Month. It is a simple ink drawing. I am calling it "They are all gone but they are all still here with me."

I have long had the idea I would like to use the old photos, sheet music, postcards, etc. that my grandmother saved to integrate into my art and this may be the time and opportunity to do just that, especially since so much of it is still sitting in boxes just outside my studio.

One of the things that has happened as I go through all these sentimental and memorial things my grandmother and mother kept is that I want to honor them in some way. We had to throw away a ton of stuff but I still managed to keep an awful lot of it. I have no place to store it and I think using it to make art would have pleased them on some level. 

I'll be posting the results here.

The link to the site hosting Art Every Day is Creative Every Day and you can link to it here to see who all is joining in this month of daily art making and fun. There is also a Flickr site set up here.

Art Every Day Month

This is the piece I did today for Art Every Day Month, an internet art group that I joined recently. Beginning today anyone who would like to create a drawing, write a song, do a little dance or knit a cool sweater is invited to share their daily work online.

I will add the links over the next few days but wanted to at least get my first piece up today.

I did this drawing off the top of my head and as song fragments came into my mind I added them along the hair lines. It takes me back to work I did when I was in school and was constantly adding song lyrics or lines of poetry to my work. Funny how what goes around comes around.

I'm looking forward to doing something creative each day. I'm not going to worry about making ART. I'm just going to have fun and do whatever comes up. Fun is the operative word here!