Here Come the Hens

First came all those eggs, and now, here come the hens. Bock, buk, buk, buk.

For me, at least, the egg did come before the chicken. Another major mystery solved.

This chicken is a gelatin plate print positioned over a design paper and felt, then stitched.

We Must Be Hatched or Go Bad

I am continuing with my gelatin print obsession. As I stated in my last post, I created my first ever gelatin plate prints.  I used the theme of eggs as an entry point into the following associations: ovum, spring, new life, embryo, protective covering, nest, ovoid.

All Your Eggs in One Basket 2

Egg Idioms:

Egged: to throw eggs (or insults) at.

A good egg: a good person.

Egging someone on: inciting someone to do something.

Egg on your face: humiliation

Lay an egg: fail at something.

Put all your eggs in one basket: risk everything for one thing.

Egg Quotes

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.          ~C.S. Lewis

The egg is a germ of life with a lofty symbolical significance. It is not just a cosmogonic symbol — it is also a “philosophical one”. As the former it is the Orphic Egg, the world’s beginning; as the latter, the philosophical egg of the medieval natural philosophers, the vessel from which, at the end of the opus alchymicum, the homunculus emerges… the spiritual, inner, and complete man. ~C. G Jung

Robert Assagioli’s “egg diagram” of the human psyche.

I have quoted C.J. Jung and C.S. Lewis. Perhaps I should start signing my work C.A. Wiebe. It sounds so professional.

Blue Eggs

Egg Yoke

Gelatin Plate Printing with Eggs on my Mind

I have been wanting to try gelatin plate printing for a quite some time. However, one has to question how much one wants something that one never gets around to doing.

It reminds me of the letter written by a little girl to her aunt, thanking her for the birthday present of some beautiful hankies. They may be heirlooms of the future, but we are fairly certain that the letter is parentally prompted. The wording gives it away:

Thank you so much, auntie, for the beautiful hankies you sent me for my birthday. I’ve always wanted hankies, although not very much.

Last Monday I cooked up some gelatin and poured it on a cookie pan. When the gelatin had set enough to move without spilling, I put the pan in the fridge downstairs, and was not able to get to it until Friday. I wondered if I would find one large, hard, gelled lump when I pulled it out. Happily, it was firm, but still giving and responsive to the touch. A good friend of mine works for the Ontario egg board, and her birthday is coming up soon, so I decided to do an egg theme in her honor. I wanted simple, uncomplicated shapes so that I could just play and get a feel for the process

I pulled about 50 prints all together over 2 days. I used ordinary acrylic paint, which is not supposed to be suitable because it dries out too quickly, but it worked for me. Next time, I will experiment with Golden Open Acrylics. Not all of the prints are worth keeping, but I really took to the process. When your mind offers a full length movie of possibilities using a certain technique, you know you are onto something.

Here are 3 pulled prints, and 3 variations. See the wonky edges of the gelatin? Now the prints are in my design paper collection.

This is an actual pulled print.

Gelatin Print 1

This is Gelatin Print 1 with a few changes via Photoshop Elements (mostly higher saturation).

Gelatin Print 1a

Gelatin Print 2

I thought this design lent itself very well to a cruciform composition. I like that egg mandala in the centre.

Gelatin Print 2a

Gelatin Print 3

I really saturated the colors of Gelatin Print 3 in Photoshop Elements.

Gelatin Print 3a

Wild Desire

Standing amidst her long limbed sisters, she was certain that
if she was tapped a glowing sap would flow from her being.
It would taste like contentment, with a lingering note of wild desire.

17.75” (l) x 24” (w)

The figure in this paper quilt may appear far too serene to be harboring wild desire. But by becoming one with her “sister trees,” she has fulfilled her desire and reached a state of contentment. Her hands, a nest in themselves, cradle a bird’s nest, which holds three eggs. A bird has honored her stillness. A lingering note of wild desire still remains; who knows when it will be resurrected from its quiescence.

This is a dream quilt, and I interpret it as an encouragement to reach out, go out on a limb, honor my wild desires. The bird symbolizes, in part, the freedom to do just that, to fly in the face of limiting fears. From what the young woman is holding in her hands, it appears that daring these things will provide nurture for my spirit, and contentment.

A surprise of beautiful work

I went to a local art ‘n craft sale this weekend, and found some beautiful painting/collage work by an artist named Laurie Skantzos.

I also was quite taken with Rosa Murillo’s sirens, another artist who uses collage and painting (to mention just a few) techniques in her work. Rosa is into found art . . . an intriguing concept whereby “artists all over the world are contributing to leave art to be found by someone who just happened to stop and see it unexpectedly, and to make their day a little more inspired and cheerful.”

Then I found Sarah Winkler’s work. Here is painting/collage work to aspire to! As she says,

My paintings are fragments of past travels, current environment and related observations. I piece, paste and fuse together diverse imagery and text that tickles the imagination, stirs the senses, and evokes an air of mystery and illusion.

I made a Christmas present for a good friend of mine, using what I call painting/collage techniques. Wendi loves chocolate, dogs (especially her poodle Cocoa), eggs . . . and I will leave the rest for you to explore at her site! I know I will be creating many more of these mixed media collage paintings. It is a very freeing way to work! Here is my result:

Ancient Appetites