More Mended Words and Good News

(Above:  My pieces selected by curators Susan J. Torntore and Kathleen Kok for Photographs and Memories, an invitational group exhibition at the Pacific Northwest Quilts & Fiber Arts Museum in La Conner, Washington.  Most of the pieces are from my Decision Portrait Series.  From top, left to bottom, right:  Behind in the Mortgage, College Student, Illegal Immigrant, My Bluegrass Roots I, Self Portrait, Gift of Life, Fighting Illiteracy, Organic Farmers, My Bluegrass Roots III, and Soul Mates.  Click on any image to enlarge.)

When a museum curator contacts me, I'm immediately excited!  I'm especially excited now that these works are hanging in an invitational group exhibition at the Pacific Northwest Quilts & Fiber Arts Museum in La Conner, Washington.  Curators Susan J. Torntore and Kathleen Kok made the selections.  I shipped the work.  Sometimes I ship work and never hear a single word about the exhibition, but this time was different.  The opening reception was two evenings ago.  Amazingly, I got a Facebook comment yesterday morning telling me how great the work looked!  Definitely exciting!

Above:  Mended Words IX: Henry VI.  Ripped and stitched antique engraving collaged with Shakespeare quotations.)

This week I've finished a couple more pieces in my new Mended Words Series.  I'm really enjoying everything about them ... from ripping the image, stitching it back together, researching for an appropriate quote, and especially selecting the individual letters to apply the words to the page.

 
(Above:  Mended Words X: The Tiff.)

This particular scene just begged to be ripped.  Elizabeth Barrett Browning's quotation was equally perfect.

(Above:  Mended Words XI: Madonna.)

I thought about using words more specifically from the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary but none were more touching than this better known phrase.

(Above:  Mended Words XII: Cleopatra.)

When I first started this series, I looked for only the black-and-white engravings but I found several that had some color.  The color is not original.  Once upon a time, Mouse House (the custom picture framing business I own with my husband) paid a budding artist to hand color some of our antique engravings.  This was nothing new. We'd had other, more competent people doing this in even earlier years.  This last person's attempts weren't particularly good.  She didn't want to "make a mistake" and thus rarely finished any of the engravings.  She had only applied burgundy to Cleopatra.  So ... I finished by adding more colors, ripping the piece, stitching it back together again, and adding words from Shakespeare's play.

(Above:  Mended Words XIII: Juliet and the Nurse.)

This engraving was half colored too.  It had only burgundy and very little yellow.  I had fun finishing the color and transforming the print.  I've been working on several other things too.  Hopefully, I'll be able to get some photographs this weekend!