Dreams, the soul & Jung collage

I'm a huge fan of Carl Jung and his writings so finally got around do creating a collage regarding his concepts of dreams, the subconscious and the soul.  I chose a Julia Margaret Cameron photo of Esther, circa late 1800's as the dreamer, imposed along with a photo of Carl Jung over his natal chart since I once was a professional astrologer and enjoy looking at charts of authors and scientists.  The fish in the collage represent the dream, since water, the undersea and even the black swan are all symbols of night according to the Italian philosopher, Ficinio.  Plus I'm a Pisces so fish are cool with me.  I used a number of techniques, including the taping off of lines the use of gesso and gel mediums, and composition I learned from both Claudine Helmuth's Collage Discovery Workshop and Bee Shay's Collage Lab, whose books are great on collage.
This is a small piece, 8X10 so I kept it simple. The main images besides the natal chart and vintage photos are all Graphic 45 papers form the Steampunk Debutant Collection.  I accented with stamped words which read, "The Soul Must Be awakened, using a stamp letter collection and also added the Nick Bantock saying"To Be Read Between the Lines."  Nick and Dave McKean were the firs artist to inspire me to work with collage.
And I was very excited to try a new technique I learned form a Tim Holtz video using his fragments to make the tiles.  I love this technique and it's so easy and my adult son thought they were the coolest part of the artwork.  So I'm planning on using them a lot more. -

Autumnal

Last week was frenzy, this week is calming down and I'm getting more into a pattern. Work on the press in the morning, two books this week, j m niotta's "The devil's doing the same damn thing he's always done" trying to get the cover right and checking edits on Michael Casare's The Winter King. j michael and I are working on the book as he traverses Europe ( alot by train). So far he's written from Ireland, and he's now in Prague. It sure makes our emails more interesting.

Then second part of the day is taking care of Shaman Circus details for All Things That Matter Press. Yesterday, I sent off the long and short summaries and bios, dedication page, acknowledgements. I'm working on the cover art for Shaman Circus, back and forth with Steve Viner in the UK, a marvelous artist. I'm so honored to work with him as he tries to interpret my vision from my vague rambling descriptions. It's like magic working with Steve, like having my own personal artistic genie on hand. He can interpret night time dreams and a few weeks later amkes them real. His work is so much like Dave McKean's of Sandman fame, one of my favorite artists of allt imes. My mind sees things like he does, but my skill level simply can't pull them off. Steve can. Steve's work takes my breath away and also touches me on emotional levels. Besides, he's such a generous, kind humble individual.

Then, I must print some books for folks and mail off Enzo Marra's contributor's copies. Justin will come by today to get his and he has a reading this Friday at Leopard Forest Coffee House (I may even read if they have open mike). Well that's just what's on the agenda this morning. Time to turn up the IAMX and get cracking.