WHAT: If you have ordered something from my Etsy store recently, or if you get a Christmas card from me, you will find inside one or both of the following invitations for #12daysoftomsbeard.
Invitations with tags to decorate. Sometimes I include a little packet of paper ephemera to help people get ideas or inspiration, if they need it. If you want an invitation and did not get one in the mail, you can download one at this link – #12daysoftomsbeard tag invite.
These tags are intended for drawing on or decorating, then sending back to me, so that I can hang them on Tom’s beard each day from December 25 to January 6. During that time I will take a crazy picture of the results to put on social media for people to find when they search for the hashtag #12daysoftomsbeard. Last year Tom and I experimented with different lighting effects, backgrounds and filters to come up with something unusual each day. Last year I tried to group the beard art items, background and filters by color because bright colors usually go far toward cheering and inspiring me.
Here are some examples of tags I decorated last year, a couple that people sent in to me, and a few images that resulted.
WHY: We mostly like to do this because it’s a lot of fun, and it makes us laugh! You should have seen my MIL’s reaction when she saw the orange picture of Tom! “What have you done to my son!!!” We could do this without any participation from others, but we appreciate it whenever anyone wants to join in. It’s an extra creative challenge to use something someone else sent in, and it’s a way to connect with people who are sometimes separated by distance or who I don’t even know in “real life”.
Why do people paint rocks and leave them for others to find? Why do Jeep owners put rubber ducks on random other Jeeps? Why did I put a banana peel on my head earlier this year and have my picture taken with it on? Why did people in Toronto make a memorial display for a dead raccoon and share it on social media? Group activities and performance art projects are a satisfying activity for some reason, for quite a few people. I will probably write more later about the psychological reasons why that is the case.
Earlier this year I started a SWOT analysis of #12daysoftomsbeard to try to use some of what I learned in marketing class to try to increase participation this year. I didn’t finish the analysis yet, but I will keep adding onto it in the future as I finish sections. Here it is if you want to read what I have written so far – SWOT Analysis of #12daysoftomsbeard.
HOW – One idea I want to try for increasing participation is to provide some more specific instructions. The wording on the invitations reads: “To play, color, glue, punch, stamp or otherwise decorate this tag.” For some people, that will be enough guidance, others might feel comfortable with something more specific.
I am going to suggest techniques to try, and post examples here on this page. Watch this space as I add them! Since I like to use mixed media a lot, it will be a challenge for me to use just one technique at a time, so maybe I’ll try that. Enjoy!
Drawing
Coloring
Stenciling
Stickers
Hole punches
Design tape – also known as Washi tape or Paper tape
Collage
Rubber Stamping
Image Transfers
?????????? – What other techniques could be used?
Here are four examples of beard invitations I made for the 2022-23 season. They are meant to look a bit like chunks of hair that when assembled and applied to Tom’s face, will resemble a beard.I added a QR code to this web page so people could quickly find out what it is and what to do with it.Here are links to all six variations.
To participate, print out one or more of these sheets. Color or decorate the beard pieces with the designs and materials of your choice. Mail the pieces to Tom and I. Then check the hashtag #12daysoftomsbeard on Instagram between December 25 and January 6 each year to see what happens!
For more inspiration
Here is a link to a slideshow of images from the web page of IUOMA – The International Union of Mail Artists. I’ve been uploading the beard pictures to this gallery as I go. Intermixed are images that other people are uploading of conceptual art that they are both sending and receiving. This slide show changes daily as new images get added and older ones drop off. It might give you some ideas! Sometimes I put this slideshow on the screen while I’m working for extra inspiration!
I started making this series of experimental art quilts for two main purposes – to learn some hand quilting skills, and to have fun challenging myself to try to make art with upcycled scrap fabrics.
I decided to treat these pieces in a similar manner to some of my art journal pages. I thought of the fabric scraps as equivalent to the paper scraps that start off a lot of my art journal pages. Then I used the quilting stage to kind of draw with thread over and around the scraps like I would draw with pens and pencils on an art journal page. These were intended as art for the wall and not functional quilts so I had a lot of freedom to experiment with different fabrics and textures. Following are pictures of each piece and some process photos I took while I was making them so you can get an idea of how they were constructed. Enjoy!
Experimental Art Quilt #2
Originally this was going to be a sample for a JoAnn class for beginners I was interested in teaching. It was supposed to be four 6 inch squares with embroidery on them. Then I got inspired and started adding and adding and adding parts…I wanted to get the embroidered parts right so I plotted some of them out on the computer first by using Adobe Illustrator to draw lines over a picture of the quilt to see how it might look. The final step was to outline it with blanket edging that I bought at JoAnn. I also bought the rick-rack, tulle, and yellow sheer ribbon there. I bought the batting online from my wholesaler and all the other fabrics were upcycled or leftovers. There are a few scraps in there that I printed with rubber stamps, a few scraps from my Mom’s stash, a few pieces from a dress I wore in 1985 and a piece of curtains that my Mom made for my room in the early 1980s!Finished Experimental Art Quilt #3I assembled strips from scraps and used the reverse applique technique to insert then between strips taken from upcycled bed sheets and pillow cases. The large scale black and white Aztec-looking print was taken from my favorite shirt in the 80s. These are remnants of the sleeves and collar that I cut off when I made a vest out of it a couple of years ago. The color scheme is a result of having some fun with one colorful strip among all neutrals to make a focal point.I added a border made of tubes of leftover fabric, then decided the piece needed a bit morecolor and to draw attention to the focal point a little more. I added a strip of leftover brighter colored fabric and started on the embroidery. I used tracings inspired by a shirt I’m still working on that was inspired by my old shirt from the 80s. Then I embroidered through the tracing paper and tore away the paper after I stitched it.
Experienced quilters looking at these pieces I’m sure are aware I need a lot more technical skill and knowledge before I’m a “real” quilter, that’s why I call these “experimental”. One thing I’m thinking about doing this winter is learning to make a traditional quilt block to help with my skills in repairing a vintage quilt I started working on last winter. I’m looking forward to learning new skills as always! And I expect I’ll keep making experimental art quilts (I have ideas and the beginnings of two more already) because it’s fun and it’s useful to have portable projects I can carry around with me.
My Experimental Art Quilts 1-3 are for sale as wall art – if you are interested here are links to my listings on Etsy.
I fell down the stairs and bent my foot the wrong way. I might have two broken toes, I realize it could have been a lot worse. The pain is way down today so my head is more clear and I can actually write something! I don’t have to spend 100% of my time off of my foot until I have a follow up appointment with an orthopedic doctor, but I will have to spend the majority of my time with it elevated, at least for awhile. Not sure for how long, but in the meantime I’m taking the opportunity to study my art therapy book and my horticultural therapy books to see if there is anything I can do to cope better with the fear and frustration of being temporarily unable to move around much. I’d also like to help my stressed out family cope with helping me with my injury while dealing with other severe recent losses. What can I learn while I study and try things out?
Having Some Fun With Negative Space
I started out by working on some collages I began during #virtualartparty number 4, an online session my husband and I hosted to help our friends and family do a little art and hopefully feel less lonely during the pandemic. I’ll write more about the collages later, but for now I want to write about the leftover cut away paper pieces I was dropping in the waste basket to be composted. The shapes were interesting, and reminded me of something. What was it? Why were these scraps interesting? Then I remembered this really cool architecture photo I had put on an Architecture Pinterest board. And some sketches I’d done for a ceramics class in the spring of 1990. Good memories of one of those times when I couldn’t stop the ideas from coming, and a pretty good percentage of them still seem exciting to me.
What I was noticing was the shapes made by the negative space – the parts I cut away – and how they reminded me of positive and negative shapes that I responded strongly to. I took the most interesting white paper scraps back out of the waste basket and glued them down on black paper. I scanned them into the computer to make these positive and negative images to see if they inspired me to make something with them.
Using Photoshop, I made selection outlines out of the white shapes, stroked them in black, and printed out the results as coloring pages so I can try to encourage myself and other people to enjoy the benefits of coloring and art making. There is enough going on to get people started – sometimes a blank page is intimidating if people don’t know what to draw or color – that’s a tip I learned long ago in Drawing 1. There is still room for individual creativity in these and other coloring pages I’ve made available for free download.
The shapes that resulted from the paper cutting do somewhat resemble natural forms, but the overall design so far is abstract. Is abstract art good for therapeutic purposes?
I often encourage people to try making some abstract art in a project that is relatively low stakes such as an art journal page, because my reasoning has been that many untrained artists are afraid that they can’t draw and therefore are discouraged from making art that attempts to be representational. If I can show them how to make art from found papers and found objects, maybe that will help them become less inhibited and just have fun.
My favorite kind of art is abstract and if need be I can keep myself entertained with shapes, colors, textures and lines for hours if not days on end. Even if I think it’s fascinating and fun, abstract art is likely going to be a hard sell for most people. Those who appreciate abstract art the most are often art and design professionals or people very knowledgeable about art, such as patrons or collectors. The general population is mostly not that big of a fan and prefers recognizable nature-based images (Marcus and Sachs 15). We know from reactions to modern art and modern public sculpture how wide the gulf can be between the tastes of art and design professionals and the general public. If this sounds elitist, it’s not meant to be, it’s just a fact pointed out in a therapy book to help practitioners offer projects that are most helpful to the patient (Marcus and Sachs 15).
Abstract art isn’t necessarily therapeutic to people with certain conditions or states of mind. Experiments on physically or emotionally stressed patients revealed not only an affinity toward nature imagery but hostility to abstract art – even to the point of attacking the abstract pieces in some cases. The same artwork often prompted positive reactions from the staff, showing how the varying states of mind of individuals influenced how the artwork was perceived (Marcus and Sachs 30-31).
Practitioners intending to use art to facilitate health should keep the client’s needs in mind above their own personal tastes (Marcus and Sachs 15). Stress is detrimental to healing, both mentally and physically (Marcus and Sachs 25), so the last thing I would want to do is add to someone’s stress if I was trying to help them.
What could I add to my abstract background to make a project that is more soothing to the general public? My project is aimed at people who want to color but don’t necessarily want to draw. I have several stencils in my collection with botanical imagery that will appeal to the universal human need for nature-based imagery. I can use colors that are soothing and also found in nature. I chose blues and greens for this demo because hot colors might aggravate certain conditions and interfere with wellness (Winterbottom and Wagenfeld 182).
Art Journal Page
Here is an art journal page I made with one of my abstract printouts and a botanical themed stencil.
I got out a piece of cardstock that I use as a template for making pages that fit my art journal and I traced around the printout to remind me where the page edge will be. I chose a stencil by The Crafter’s Workshop, Mini Four Ferns, and outlined the fern designs in pencil.I chose a blue gray pencil color to fill in the abstract shapes so that they would visually recede into the background behind the green ferns. Where the fern and abstract shapes overlapped, I overlaid neutral gray marker. I used green colored pencils and a green Sharpie paint marker to color in the rest of the ferns where they did not overlap the blue, and I outlined the ferns with a thin black Sharpie pen. It didn’t look quite finished so I drew some lines in pencil that are reminiscent of topographic maps. Then I was satisfied!
Works Cited
Marcus, Clare Cooper and Naomi A. Sachs. Therapeutic Landscapes: An Evidence-Based Approach to Designing Healing Gardens and Restorative Outdoor Spaces. Wiley, 2014.
Winterbottom, Daniel and Amy Wagenfeld. Therapeutic Gardens: Design for Healing Spaces. Timber Press, 2015.
Sometimes I find and save advertising materials printed on nice paper. I might like part of the imagery, or be attracted to the weight and feel of the paper, or both. It’s sometimes less intimidating to start an art journal page on paper that already has something on it than a blank piece of paper. In this article I’ll show you two ways to creatively alter found papers with text on them.
Tools and Materials Assorted found papers and scrap papers Clean scrap paper Stencils Markers and other drawing and coloring implements of choice Painter’s tape or masking tape Scissors Glue stick Burnishing tool
First, select a piece of paper with text on it, and a stencil. Tape the stencil in place over the text. Using the marking implement of your choice, outline the openings in the stencil only in the spots where there is text to cover.
This results in an interesting effect. The text turns into a texture rather than something you read, and the resulting graphic effect might suggest what to do next to finish the composition. You might decide to color in some or all of the outlines you just traced over the text.
In the example above, since I’ve used permanent black Sharpie markers, I can use almost any medium I want to add color if I want to.
There is no need to restrict yourself to using a black marker. My brother got off to a very good start on this page. He took advantage of the pale text to use colored Sharpie markers. If he wants to work on this page more it has a lot of potential. Note: my brother died about three weeks after making this page. I don’t know if I’m going to add to it or keep it as is, but it’s in my art journal.
I have a real weakness for amoeba shapes and any graphics that suggest mid-century modern imagery. I cut these blocks of text from a magazine because of the pretty shapes and colors backing some of the text.
The article I took these cutouts from was about work-life balance. There are some words in these paragraphs that would be good to have in my art journal, which I use as a self-care tool as well as for creative expression. I covered up the words I didn’t want to see with strips of scrap paper and left exposed the words I did want to see. When the glue was dry enough to handle, I trimmed the shapes. Toward the end, I got tired of gluing paper strips and for the last few lines I wanted to cover, I used a yellow opaque paint marker to finish off these pieces.
Some people compose prose or poetry this way, by removing words instead of writing them to make new compositions. In this sample I was mainly interested in making a visual statement, and I treated the words as random elements. But if you wanted to, you could make a carefully considered visual AND literary statement by selectively covering words.
Here is a two-page spread using both techniques from this article together. I think these two pages are almost complete. I’ll think about them for awhile before doing anything else to them, if I decide they need more.
It helps that these two found pages here were already strong graphically, which was part of the reason why I was attracted to them in the first place.
More Examples
Following are more art journal pages that I started by selectively covering text. Enjoy!
Art journal page. I covered up the light-colored text with vertical lines in gel pen. Then I used more gel pen, color pencils and a white paint marker to finish it off. The abstract stencil is one of my own design, the tree with birds stencil is made by The Crafter’s Workshop – it’s for sale in my Etsy shop. https://www.etsy.com/listing/1142360780/mini-cherry-blossoms-6×6-stencilOn this art journal page, I partially covered the text by stenciling with black marker to make the text into a texture instead of something readable. Then I drew through more stencils with a mechanical pencil then colored in around the pencil marks. All four stencils used here are by The Crafter’s Workshop.I used a stencil that I cut myself and a commercial one by Tim Holtz on this art journal page. I made hatch marks blocking some of the text as part of the design. I blocked out some of the text with gesso and correction tape. I had fun playing with making the text cover-up part of the mark-making.
Recently I was working on a sleeping bag for a doll, and I was looking around the house for a doll or stuffed animal that I could use to test out the size. I didn’t use it because it was too big, but I did look at a doll of sorts that I made a long time ago in sculpture class when I was working on a B.F.A. degree at SIUE. At the time I had taken the class, I had just been on a trip to Utah and had brought back with me some books on Native American petroglyphs and stone fetishes. I made a throw pillow sized soft wolf fetish with blanket and soft arrowhead for my late friend June for Christmas that year. We both shared an intense interest in Southwest travel and art. For class I made a humanoid stuffed figure with amulet bag, loincloth, and blanket.
While making the soft sculpture, although inspired by ancient Native American art forms, I did not want to refer to any particular culture exactly, rather I wanted to evoke an ancient sense of humanity that many cultures share. Throughout human history there were many ways to wear and use blankets as a part of clothing and outerwear before things like buttons and zippers were invented, and of course people still use and wear blankets in many ways today. For my soft sculpture’s blanket I chose a fabric in a garish early 1990s fabric pattern to suggest a striped blanket but not imitate any particular culture.
While working on my doll sleeping bag, I decided it was a good time to update the look of my soft sculpture. Since teaching at JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts from 2016-early 2020 I’ve been working a lot more with fabric. I decided to start with the blanket. I have a large collection of scrap fabric that I like to sew into strips to use in projects such as art quilts, purse straps, water bottle carrier straps, table runners, headbands, and more. I thought the blanket I made for the soft sculpture would look more attractive with some added strips of scrap fabric so I started piecing and sewing strips in place.
Experimental projects using fabric scraps. From left to right: what will become part of Experimental Art Quilt #2 (still in progress), a table runner that I have used in many art and craft shows, and a purse with strap that I made for a niece as a graduation gift. The purse folds out so that it can be used as either a little clutch purse or a water bottle carrier. The strap is removeable and can be used in different ways.Left: old blanket piece with new scrap strips held up against it to see if the colors and patterns look good together. Right: an endcap I put together for Schnarr’s Hardware in Webster Groves, MO to showcase some supplies for fun summer craft and home decor projects. I used my refreshed blanket a backdrop for some blank wood succulent shapes ready for painting and decorating. On the other half, I draped a piece of nautical themed fabric. Over both backdrops are hung nautical themed flags that I sewed last summer.
Here is how to start a scrap strip. Decide on a color scheme and lay out pieces of fabric to use. Here I decided on a neutral scheme for a future project.
Place fabric pieces good side together, and pin along one edge. Keep going until you have pinned enough pieces to make a strip as long as you need for your project. The first two photos show the same strip from the front first, and then the back, after pinning.
Using a washable fabric marking pen and a ruler, draw a line along one edge, leaving a small seam allowance. Drawing the lines will help you keep your seams straight.
Sew all the pieces together and you’ll have a strip that you can use for many projects.
Temporarily pinned stripes in place on print fabric to see how the colors and patterns look together. A fabric pattern that has some kind of stripes or regularly spaced shapes that you can use to line up your stripes will save you a little time measuring and drawing lines on your fabric, but of course any fabric that looks good as a background would work.
Art journaling is an activity that helps me a lot with self care, artistic expression and just general management of life. Lately I’ve been experimenting with combining some artistic expression with material I’m learning in Social Engineering class. There are a lot of acronyms and concepts to remember – things that lend themselves well to bullet journals, art journals and chart and graph type graphics.
These pairs of pages you will see are in progress. I made them to have something to do adult coloring and other paper craft based activities on when I want to relax and be creative for a bit. As I work I can study and memorize the “bullet points”. I’m going to erase some of these pencil lines as I go. For a couple of the more complicated layouts I made drawings on tracing paper and chipboard templates to help cut the paper pieces to the right sizes and shapes.
Some of the stencils I used are commercial products I sell in my online Etsy shop. If you would like to see the selection, it’s at this link: Stencils and Stenciling Supplies.
I hope these pages in progress will give you some ideas for organizing information in a creative and fun way!
Two-page spread for MAPP – Mitigation and Prevention Plan.Here is a pair of pages I began to create my rendition of “Curtis’ Triad of Disruption”. I love geometric shapes, and trios. This will be fun to work on!I finally finished “Triad of Disruption” on 12/30/22! I did a couple of things a bit different than I planned.Social Engineering Pyramid two-page spread on tracing paper and then started in the art journal.Finally finished coloring these two art journal pages.
A little over two years ago, I was sick for quite awhile with an awful sinus problem. I didn’t have much energy, so to prevent too much boredom I looked for some simple tasks to do. First I sorted all my small fabric scraps by color and organized them into containers. While doing that, I thought it would be fun to challenge myself to see how small a fabric scrap could get before I couldn’t make something out of it. I wanted to upgrade my hand-sewing skills and learn the rudiments of piecing for quilt making.
I started sewing fabric pieces into strips to combine into a scrap quilt later, after seeing some beautiful examples on Pinterest. As I accumulated strips, I combined them with other leftover fabrics such as a jean pocket, a waistband from some corduroy pants, a seam from blue jeans, old clothing tags, ribbon, binding strips, selvage pieces and some rather primitive embroidered panels I made a long time ago for use on a tote bag which has since been retired.
Over the last couple of years, every once in awhile I’d add a little bit more on. Then I finished it with blanket seam binding from JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts where I taught classes in hand sewing, general crafts and jewelry making before the pandemic.
Following are some close-ups of sections of the quilt.
At the top is part of a waistband from some Lime Green corduroy pants.Here is the top seen a little closer.Here is a close-up of some stitching. I had some fun adding on some pieces with raw edges and treating some of my stitches like I was drawing on abstract collages in one of my art journals.On some sections I used the pattern on the fabric as inspiration for how to do the quilting stitching. There are fabrics in this section from one of my old sheets and even a couple of pieces that I printed on with rubber stamps of my own design.Here is the pocket. The jeans they came from were not mine – I’ve had them in my fabric stash for so long I’m not sure where they came from. The light colored denim pieces tie-dyed with black are from a pair of jeans I dyed and wore in college.Here is the bottom end. There are fabrics in this section from sewn items my late Mom made in the early 1980s, some more fabric I printed and fabric from the ties and table runners from my wedding! My quilting friend Kate also gave me a lot of beautiful scraps I used in this section.
“Experimental Art Quilt #1” is for sale on Etsy. Here is a link to the listing:
For our Social Engineering class, we were asked to propose to work on behalf of a real cause or a fictional one. Using ISIS as an example, how could we use similar social engineering tactics to win converts over to our cause? I decided to create a fictional organization called “Artists for Media Literacy”.
Media literacy is something I was taught in both grade school and high school, although I didn’t know then what it was called. Ever since I’ve been old enough and aware enough to realize what it was, I’ve thought it had the potential to heal many of the ills of our culture if more people acquired the skills. I felt strongly enough about it in 1998 that my first solo art show included a group project in which I encouraged people to send me postcards in the mail based on the theme “Turn Off Your Television”. Here are photos showing this project on the wall at my show, and a graphic for a postcard I sent out to help promote it.
On the left is a view of the gallery showing the TV project on the wall, and on the right is a postcard I made to promote the project.
So this is where my inspiration comes from for “Artists for Media Literacy”. Artists are trained communicators and often have a lot to say about the media and consumerism.
What techniques successfully employed by ISIS would be suitable for our group?
Category: Intimidation
Isis intimidates opponents via well-produced videos, mass executions and hashtag hijacking.
“Artists for Media Literacy” is a philanthropic organization, so there will obviously be no violence or threat of violence. We have no ambition to intimidate anyone to force them to participate – we believe in individual rights and freedom and want people to voluntarily choose to adopt the media literacy techniques we propose. We do want to raise the alarm about propaganda and abusive media – so we will try to influence people to fear the consequences of not using media in a healthy way. We can use well crafted videos to promote the positive benefits of media literacy as well as the dangers of being uninformed.
Hashtag hijacking would lend itself extremely well to our cause because there are trending media-related topics going on all the time that we could hitch an awareness piece too. For example, I can check Twitter right now to see what topics are trending at this url – twitter.com/explore/tabs/trending. #Antifa and #RIP Twitter are trending right now. Those would both be great hashtags to hijack for a media literacy campaign.
Category: Reassurance
Documentaries: we would not have to coerce participation from hostages to produce documentaries touting the benefits of media literacy. The challenge would be making them engaging and accessible.
Press releases: our work would be of interest to many news outlets if we target the right ones.
Instagram: this is a social media platform particularly friendly to artists, so we’d benefit from heavy use. Here is the Instagram account for the Back To Our Roots Art Show last year promoted by Webster University students – www.instagram.com/back.to.our.roots.art/. As a participant in the show, I can vouch for it’s usefulness in helping me keep track of deadlines, inspiring my vision for the work I was producing, and helping me promote the show to my social networks via attractive, branded and shareable content.
Category: Coordination
Civic forum boards: unlike ISIS, our boards would not need to be encrypted necessarily, but they should be secure to protect us from hackers.
Secure messaging: normal consumer level communications platforms should be adequate.
Battlefield drones: We won’t have battlefields in the sense that ISIS would, but if we ever have any outdoor events we could use drones to get interesting footage for videos. I’ve seen drones used that way at historic preservation events to attract interest by showing how well attended the event was and the extent of support for our cause, preserving the Gasconade River Bridge in Hazelgreen, Missouri. The organizers have succeeded in attracting large crowds in multiple years, including international Route 66 fans.
Works Cited
P.W. Singer, and Emerson Brooking, “How ISIS Is Taking War to Social Media”, Popular Science Magazine, 2015. Accessed through course module, 16 April 2021.
Collage homage to the Beatles Anthology, from Lime Green News #16.
My current class in graduate school and other projects are pretty demanding right now, so I don’t have a lot of time to make new art. I do still enjoy looking at some of my old art from time to time. Here is a collage I made for my old ‘zine the Lime Green News #16, circa 1996-1997. It’s a tribute to the Beatles Anthology album covers, designed by Klaus Voorman. I was inspired by the use of torn images and how they can strategically reveal what’s underneath. On the Anthology 1 album cover, Voorman ripped out the head of Pete Best to reveal Ringo’s face underneath to “replace” him. This was a mean but clever technique so I did the same thing in my collage in approximately the same spot to enhance my “homage”, only I replaced John with John. If you want to see the Anthology 1 cover and the clever use of the torn out part on a Pete Best album cover, here is a link to an analysis – “The Beatles Anthology 1 Album Cover Cropped Out Original Drummer Pete Best”.
I made the above collage in the year between getting a computer with a black and white laser printer that would print up to 300 ppi, and taking my first class in Adobe Photoshop. At the time I was enjoying the novelty of being able to print out pictures to use in collages instead of just finding images. I printed out pictures of the Beatles that I found online, and printed out a bunch of clip art that I liked, and used those printouts to build the collage. A lot of the clip art came from my Corel Draw clip art library. How I used to love to pore over the printed book that came with it to get ideas!
The covers of Lime Green News 16, 17 and 18. I think those are the last three I published. The middle cover is an altered piece of art by Bill Whorrall. I don’t remember if I asked permission from him or not to do that. I might have, even though it’s very common in Mail Art and ‘zine culture to “remix” other people’s art work. I tried to get something lime green on each cover, so I used to carve a rubber stamp and hand-print it in lime green in a designated spot.
The black and white laser printer was a major step forward in the production quality of my ‘zine, even though by today’s standards it was still very primitive. It wasn’t until much later than I learned software like Publisher and InDesign to help me produce professional quality booklets. At the time of this image I was still following my old practice of printing out text on a printer and cutting and pasting the text among collaged elements. With the text coming from a laser printer instead of a Commodore 64 with a dot-matrix printer, it looked better and was a lot easier to read.
With access to what seemed like unlimited clip art and display fonts, I had tons of fun transitioning from low to high tech. For my ‘zine and collages, I printed elements for headers and body text along with images. Then in 1997, I learned Photoshop and how to make web pages, and that changed everything! But I still enjoy the old methods too and I like to make collages out of whatever is there, whenever I get a chance.
(There was some kind of web hosting problem and this post got erased the day after I posted it so I’m recreating it here. Lesson, which I have learned to heed from past experience – always write your article in a text file on a hard drive first so you can quickly re-create it!)
There is a possibility that during my current Social Engineering class I might want to cite in a paper or project some of the old content that I produced for a Beatles fanzine in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I was a member of the St. Louis Beatles Fan Club and we published a fanzine called “What Goes On”. I’ve been meaning for a long time to re-publish some of these old articles on my blog, but to make them fully indexable I would need to find a way to access some of the floppy and zip discs I have to get typed-out copies of these articles. For now it’s a lot quicker to scan the pages I might want to use and put them in a PDF file. In order for the PDF to be somewhat searchable, I’m leaving the introductory text and index as text and not rasterizing it. I will also include a list of keywords for each excerpt so that researchers online can at least get a hint of where to access some of this information if they want it for study. I’m going to reproduce the searchable text in the PDF in the remainder of this blog post also. Believe it or not, there is scholarly interest in not only the Beatles, but also Beatles fandom, fandom in general, and ‘zine culture.
I kind of made up my own format, very loosely based on MLA, so I don’t claim that this document adheres to a standard way of cataloging this type of material. I might revise the format later. Enjoy!
Excerpts from “What Goes On”: A Beatles Fanzine Originally published by the St. Louis Beatles Fan Club, 1999-2003 Copyright 1999-2003 the original authors
Excerpts included:
Winkelmann, Carolyn Hasenfratz. “‘Across the Internet’ #1”. What Goes On, Vol. VI, No 3, October 1999, pp. 11-13. Keywords: fandom and VCRs, home video recordings, history of media formats, Across the Internet, internet use by fandom in 1999, early days of the World Wide Web.
— “Revolution #9: The Art of Play and the Joys of Noise.” What Goes On, vol. VII, no. 1, January 2000, pp. 6-9. Keywords: sound collages, music concrete, experimental music, sound experiments, conceptual art, performance art, home taping, cassette tape culture, Beatles 1968 Christmas message, Beatles fandom in the 1980s, history of media formats, noise tapes, White Album, playing records backwards, backwards sound experiments, St. Louis Steamers, Checkerdome, Revolution 9, soundtrack for art gallery, low-fi sound experiments, homemade sound recordings, prank calls, Commodore 64 computer, found sounds.
— “Across the Internet” #2. What Goes On, vol. VII, no. 1, January 2000, pp. 12-13. Keywords: history of media formats, Across the Internet, internet use by fandom in 2000, early days of the World Wide Web, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player.
— “Joe Davis Takes Us Back To ‘Meet The Beatles’.” What Goes On, vol. VII, no. 2, April 2000, pp. 1, 9. Aricle by Rich Reese, Carolyn’s contribution is the collages of Valentine cards on page 9. Keywords: Joe Davis, listening party, “Meet the Beatles…Again!” radio show, 97.7 KSD FM, Nick Baycott, Les Aaron, Bears Who Care, St. Louis Veteran’s Hospital, Brentwood Community Center, “The Beatles are more popular than Jesus” controversy, 101 the Fox, FM radio in St. Louis, Missouri.
— “Happiness is a Warm…Picnic.” What Goes On, vol. VII, no. 4, October 2000, pp. 4. Photos by Carolyn. Keywords: PepperLand, Creve Couer Lake park, Beatle Bob, Rich Reese.
— “I Wanna Be Santa Claus.” What Goes On, vol. VII, no. 4, October 2000, pp. 5, 11. Keywords: John Lennon tribute, Peace Tree, Christmas, Holiday party, Christmas ornaments, conceptual art, group art project, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Bagism, performance art, peace activism, peace movement.
— “Pop! Goes The Beatles: the beatles and pop art.” What Goes On, vol. IX, no. 3, September 2001, pp. 13. Keywords: Pop Art, St. Louis Art Museum, Pop Impressions Europe, art show review, Richard Hamilton, mass media criticism, consumer culture criticism, printmaking, Peter Blake, swinging London, Eduardo Paolozzi, album cover design, Dieter Roth, illustration, fan art, interpretation of song lyrics.
— “‘Across The Internet’ #3” What Goes On, vol. IX, no. 3, September 2001, pp. 13. Keywords: Liverpool Sound Collage, Peter Blake, history of media formats, Across the Internet, internet use by fandom in 2001, early days of the World Wide Web.
Here are the Beatles Pop Art ornaments I made for a 9/11 benefit recovery raffle. I actually won back the Paul ornament and I still have it. Later I used the templates and prototypes to make a rubber stamping project that was published in RubberStampMadness magazine. Here is a link to an ornament that is similar to the ones in the article: Surreal Mixed Media Shadow Box Ornament
— “Fans and Friends Remember George.” What Goes On, Special Commemorative George Harrison Issue, February 2002, pp. 5. Carolyn’s contribution is the George Harrison themed Pop Art ornament. Keywords: Pop Art, handmade ornament, Christmas ornament, fan tributes to George Harrison, Dave Grohl, Louise Harrison, Jools Holland, Eric Idle, Anthony Kiedis, Mark Klose, Jeff Lynne, Gerry Marsden, George Martin, fan art, celebrity tributes to George Harrison, Louise Harrison Caldwell.
— “McCartney Drives Into Chicago With Full Tank: The Sights.” What Goes On, vol. IX, no. 1, June 2002, pp. 1, 6. Keywords: Paul McCartney concert review, Chicago, United Center, Driving USA Tour, concert lighting, concert video screens, special effects, performance art, live actors, Surrealist performance, Dadaist performance, rock concert production, arena rock, mulimedia, conceptual art, Pop art, Psychedelic art, art history.
— “‘Across The Internet’ #4.” What Goes On, vol. IX, no. 2, October 2002, pp. 5. Keywords: history of media formats, Across the Internet, internet use by fandom in 2002, early days of the World Wide Web, Linda McCartney photography exhibit, Sheldon Art Galleries, Nine/One One + One art show, Art St. Louis, 9/11 art show.
Note: For the 9/11 art show referenced just above, I made two collages to submit for judging. There are some differences between them that I deliberately put in to test a theory about which one had a chance of getting in the show and which did not. My prediction was accurate, and is interesting to think about in light of the social engineering I’m currently studying. Here are the links to the two collages, if you want to guess which one got in and what didn’t.
— “New Paul Live CD = Permanent Grin.” What Goes On, vol. IX, no. 3, 2003, pp. 4. Keywords: CD review, record review, Paul McCartney Back in the U.S., concert recording, concert CD, live album, live CD, rock concert.
— “Scrapbook Scraps.” What Goes On, vol. IX, no. 3, 2003, pp. 13. Keywords: scrapbooking, digital scrapbooking, Seattle, Seattle Kingdome, record breaking rock concernts, legendary concert venues, rock concert history, Hollywood, Capitol Records building, Hollywood and Vine, Yellow Submarine, John Lennon, Hollywood Walk of Fame, gold records, travel photos, Beatles impact on culture.
