More Little Jo Stories

Little Jo Rides Again...

Little Jo and Her Dolly

You've seen Little Jo before. I used her photos several years ago when I first stated making a collage a day and I ran across some of her prints while preparing for Collage BootCamp which will be this coming Saturday, March 12.  (There are still a few spaces, if you can join us. Click here for more information.)

One doesn't usually find much use for childhood photos, but I'm having such fun with mine. These Little Jo photos are of me at 2-4 years of age, taken by my dad who loved me with his camera, for which I'm grateful.

Now I'm at it again. I won two canvases for the Village Gallery of Arts May show, Art Adoption, and bought two more and am running with the Little Jo theme. 

Little Jo and Her New Trike

Two of the collage processes I teach in my one-day collage class, BootCamp, are used in all four collage paintings which are made on the cradled canvas. The background was built up first, using the inside of security envelopes. I didn't really think much about what I was doing once I chose and trimmed the papers to size.

After the background dried the front and sides got an isolation coat and then I started playing with scraps of brightly colored papers that contrast strongly against the gray ground. 

Little Jo and Jimbo

I call this type of composition, Layer Cake. It's one I teach in BootCamp, where you make a cattywampus paper layer cake. Little Jo was added here and there and then I spent a satisfying evening doing lots of line-work.  I don't think they're quite done but that's okay because they'll hang around the studio for two months before I have to send them out into the world and I'm sure I'll figure out something else to do to them.

Little Jo Joins the Party

I'll remind you about the VGA show later on in April. There will be 180 6x6" artworks on canvas available at bargain basement prices of $25-$50. It's a benefit for the gallery. Long lines form at the door the morning of May 3 at 10am so come early.

Dreaming of a Brown-eyed Beau

Little Jo - Dreaming of a Brown-Eyed Beau

5x7 collage with photos

The background of this collage is composed of 3 different red painted papers. the photo inserted is me with my future husband at a fraternity valentine party, c. 1958.

Little Jo with an Old Engine

Little Jo with an Old Engine

7x5 collage

This one is about the logging industry in Oregon. The setting is Camp 18, a logging museum on Highway 26 just east of the coast where many fascinating relics used in logging old growth trees from our forests are on display. I spent a couple of hours photographing the exhibit.

The collage depicts the forests. Little Jo doesn't really know what to think about it all, except to wonder at the loss of the old forests.

Little Jo Hiding in the Forest

Little Jo Hiding in the Forest

5x7 Collage

The background forest is 3 strips of photos from magazines, each overlapping part of the Little Jo photo. The most difficult part is cutting out the Little Jo photographs. It would have been easier to do with the stamp tool in Photoshop but I prefer scissors and glue.

Collage As Autobiography

Little Jo Joins The Band

Little Jo's Future Told Through Collage

Sometimes an irresistible notion comes along and all one can do is run with it.  That's what happened with me this morning. I was minding my business, drinking a fine cup of coffee when I thought, "I can use Little Jo to tell my life story for family and friends". I'll use Little Jo images to look into the future through photographs and collage. And I'll write a short story about that time to go along with each collage.

Oh brother. I can tell right now that this is going to be work.... fun, but work. I'm not promising a story a day; maybe not even one a week. But when the story comes to mind I'll go with it.

Memoir Writing
Many years ago an elderly friend (she was probably the age I am now so she couldn't have been as ancient as I thought at the time) took a class at her community collage on memoir writing and she kept writing for many years and published her memoirs for family and a few friends. That was before the ease of self-publishing through online companies which may be what I'll eventually do.  I don't expect to turn this project into something as big as Jacqueline's but whatever I do will be treasured by my family.

I'm already doing something similar. When my oldest granddaughter was 7 I started a journal for her, telling about my own life at her age. I have all my old report cards which are included as are little stories and photographs. Sometimes I don't remember anything personal so I write about generalities of living in our small town and about what was going on in the outside world. I was about 7 when my mother and the friend we were visiting heard of the end of WWII on the radio. I remember the excitement of knowing that war had come to an end, and I remember troop trains carrying men and machines as they came through town, heading for war.

So that's the kind of thing that goes in Amy's book as I add more stories every year on her birthday. This year I'll write about me at age 13; that would be this story about Little Jo, the majorette.

Little Jo Leads the Parade
I've always loved music and through the years I took hundreds of lessons... piano, voice, dance, band, choir, though I was too undisciplined to ever do my best. When I was in 6th grade I joined the band and started with the trombone. That instrument lasted only a year until I switched to clarinet, but my main love was marching in the school band. The director asked me to try out for majorette in 7th grade which was fine with me because I could then be in the band without bothering with an instrument until late fall when marching season was over and concert band began. We performed at every game and marched in every parade. What fun!  Then when I was in 11th grade I became the drum majorette and led the parade for the next 2 years. I still like to lead the parade.

-30-

So what about you?  Are you writing your story, or painting it, or making collages about your life, or keeping scrapbooks and photo albums? The time is now!

Little Jo in Her New Blue Dress

She never did look good in prints and this is no exception. But BJ suggested that Little Jo needed a blue flowered dress and this is all we could find in the store.
And regarding the composition of the collage...the roof is tilted about 20 degrees too much, even considering artistic license but once I realized it was wrong the glue had dried. Oh well, it's just an exercise.

Little Jo Goes Hunting

Little Jo has her new orange hunting vest.

She's rounded up a pack of hunting

dogs who'll follow her anywhere.

She completed Hunter Safety class,

and all she needs now is a gun

and a ride and she's good to go.

Little Jo - Birthday Girl

Little Jo - Birthday Girl

I happened upon part of a September calendar page that's printed in two of my favorite colors. Little Jo is a happy camper. It sure didn't take long to do this little collage.. just what the on-going project is all about, to do a collage a day in 15 minutes or less.  I don't get one made every day nor do I limit myself to 15 minutes some days but there've been days when I worked on five at once. I get caught up with the papers, compositional challenges, and the process of doing them and time simply flies.

I love that about art, how time flies by on the good days.

Stamp Carving

I'm not much of a football fan but I do enjoy the Super Bowl commercials. So when we were invited to a potluck Sunday afternoon I made up a little stamp carving kit: rubber carving blocks cut to size (the white ones like erasers), my carving tools, and a list of words. I transfered some of the words ahead of time using acetone on the toner copy and used a pencil to transfer others. I did watch much of the game, and found myself carving through some of the commercials.  Some of the stamps have a word on each side. I have a project in mind for the stamps which is why the words have a similar theme.

First Little Jo

Little Jo and Jimbo

8x8

Sold

This Little Jo piece was made about 3 years ago using some painted paper from my compost bin.

Little Jo in the Garden of Good vs Evil

Little Jo in the Garden of Good vs Evil

5x7

After living the good life as the first child of parents who had all but given up hope for a family my brother arrived and messed up everything. Little Jo's expression says it all... not only did I have to share my parents who spoiled me rotten but I had hold him for a photo even when he didn't smell so good! The expression on her face makes me think that she has a couple of evil thoughts chasing one another around her brain.

I'm having such fun with Little Jo and plan to milk the idea for all it's worth. I printed a bunch of copies of the 2 pictures and cut them out by hand so I have a collection of Little Jo photos in several sizes. I'll scan more photos and do the same so I have a variety of poses from which to choose.

One of the joys of collage is that the artist gets to move color around and change it up at will, and that's true of cut out images, too. These little girl bits take me back to the days of paper dolls who lived in a cigar box along with their clothes, waiting for me to play whenever I wanted.

Using an image such as this provides an immediate and obvious focal point for a collage, an element that's quite easy to overlook but very important to the finished work. It doesn't have to be a person or an animal. It could be a flower, a symbol, an area of strong contrast of light and dark, or simply something that's different than the background.  Like the photographs in my Oregon sketchbook where the contrast was an extension of the landscape which was rendered in pencil or watercolor.  Look at the Slide in my sidebar to see the sketchbook photos to which I'm referring.

Little Jo Walks On Circles

Little Jo Walks On Circles

5x7"

Daily Collage

No, there's no deep meaning in the name. It's easiest to keep track of pieces by naming the individual "Little Jo" pieces as they relate to whatever else is going on within the piece; circles seems to be as good as anything else I could think up. Naming works of art is Not my thing. I could go with numbers that relate to the date but that doesn't really tell me anything except when it was created and that means nothing to either you or me.

What would you name this?

How do you find names for your artwork?



Little Jo and the Red Chair

Little Jo and the Red Chair

5x7

Daily Collage

There's something about this photograph that appeals to me and I intend to use it for several of my daily collages as sort of a self portrait, though my dad took the picture when I was only three years old. There are a couple of other useful photos in my collection of childhood snapshots, taken with his old bellows camera.

While many artists prefer to make digital collages, I find more satisfaction in working with scissors and glue, getting sticky fingers and coming up with even more ideas as I work quietly at my table.

For me, hands-on making will always be my choice route to finished work, though I also intend to send myself to my own home-school, sitting at the computer to study Photoshop. I've taken 3 PS workshops but my mind doesn't want to retain what I learn and I forget the information somewhere between the classroom and my garage. Layers, lasso tools, and palette wells are just so much noise to my right brain, but I do want to develop a firm working knowledge of the program because I see many ways it would be useful to me as I work with my photographs.