From the Archives: Fictional Portraits, 2005-06
Stripey Lady. Mixed media on found fabric, 2005 by Sarah Atlee.
Mask Lady 2. Ink on paper (sketchbook page), 2005-06 by Sarah Atlee.
Yellow Girls. Mixed media on canvas, 2005 by Sarah Atlee.
Brideshead Revisited, Revisited. Oil on found fabric, 2005 by Sarah Atlee.
Eggs (I Only Gave You Some) for Shopper!
Eggs (I Only Gave You Some), graphite on archival digital print
Eggs (I Only Gave You Some) Graphite on archival digital print 20 x 16 inches framed, $895 2014 by Sarah Atlee - some rights reserved
Shopper! The Art Show A Curious Collection of Found Shopping Lists & Artists' Renditions of Those Who Made Them
Curated by Tessa Raven Bayne
When: 16 August - 14 September 2014
Where: Hancock Creative Shop, 116 S 2nd St., Guthrie, Oklahoma (map link)
Take a decade's worth of found shopping lists, add visual artists to reimagine the lists' authors, mix with writers spinning colorful tales of these shoppers, and you get a collaborative summer art show that's sure to deliver.
The shopping list that inspired Eggs.
The shopping list that prompted my imagined portrait.
Eggs (I Only Gave You Some), detail view, graphite on archival digital print
A closer look at Eggs.
I created Eggs using an experimental process. I began by taking hi-res scans of ledger paper, moving the paper around during scanning to achieve interesting distortions. I printed the resulting scan onto several different high-quality inkjet papers. Using a range of soft pencils from 3B to 9B, I tested the tooth of each paper to see which surface held up best. I settled on Hahnemuehle Museum Etching.
The drawing is based on a collage sketch:
Eggs (I Only Gave You Some), collage sketch, 2014 by Sarah Atlee
Many different sources went into this conceptual mockup. Photographs of Evelyn Nesbit (who inspired the Gibson Girl image), the New York Public Library's Maps archive, and postcards from Google Earth, just to name a few.
As I predicted, the distorded grid of the ledger paper background image informed and melded with the shapes I drew. I'm very pleased with the results and will repeat this process for future drawings.
Sketchbook 2012: No Trespassing Quilt
Sketchbook 2012: No Trespassing, mixed media, 2012 by Sarah Atle
No Trespassing, mixed media collage sketch, 2012 by Sarah Atlee
Like the Millennium Quilt series, I made this drawing while my mother was recovering from surgery. I thought it would be interesting to create a geometric composition based on a (blurry) photograph. Abstraction through pixellation, although the original photograph is the digital media, whereas the drawing below is analog.
Fijian, jiving, and scheme are cool words.
Sketchbook 2012: No Trespassing quilt sketch, ink and colored pe
No Trespassing Quilt, ink and colored pencil on paper, 2012 by Sarah Atlee
Refreshing the Palate: Titus
On Sunday, November 9, 2008, the Metro Wine Bar in Oklahoma City is hosting their second annual wine tasting and art exhibit, Refreshing the Palate. The Metro has commissioned twenty local artists to reinterpret the labels of their featured holiday wines. I was offered the 2006 Cabernet Franc from Titus Vineyards. How could I not riff on the deliciously gory Shakespeare tragedy of that same name?
Titus, collage and acrylic on Rives BFK, 2008. Click image to enlarge.
The artists' labels will be sold by silent auction; proceeds will benefit the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition. TAMORA Know, thou sad man, I am not Tamora; She is thy enemy, and I thy friend: I am Revenge: sent from the infernal kingdom, To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind, By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes. Come down, and welcome me to this world's light; Confer with me of murder and of death: There's not a hollow cave or lurking-place, No vast obscurity or misty vale, Where bloody murder or detested rape Can couch for fear, but I will find them out; And in their ears tell them my dreadful name, Revenge, which makes the foul offender quake.
TITUS ANDRONICUS Art thou Revenge? and art thou sent to me, To be a torment to mine enemies?
TAMORA I am; therefore come down, and welcome me.
(Thanks to William Shakespeare Info. And thanks to Julie Taymor for making the colorful film version of Titus Andronicus.)
Afterthought: The body and limbs of this character were collaged from a copy of Woman Stabbing Herself (or Woman Next to Water) by Urs Graf. If you like this style, you might also like Durer, Cranach the Elder, and Goltzius.
David Foster Wallace (1962 - 2008)
David Foster Wallace Considers the Lobster. Acrylic, ink and collage on paper, 2006.