Vintage Ancestors and Art Is You

The newest collaborative journal I'm involved in is themed Vintage Ancestors, and we will begin mailing our books in mid October.  We're using cabinet cards (or our version of them), creating a back story, and then each successive artist will give us another relative or two or six (might be a group photo) and add to the story.  I see great opportunities for every style of art.  Seriously elaborate lace, fanciful altered ancestors, and everything in between.

I think most of us created our own books for the project, and from what I've seen so far in the photos we've shared, they are pretty fabulous.  My own is modest in size and decoration, but I think it does have a vintage feel.  Here is the cover:

 

 

The covers are corrugated cardboard disguised by many layers of decorative napkins, tissue paper, paper tape, gesso, ink, and paint (not necessarily in that order; I just kept layering).  Here is a sideways view (a little dark; sorry about that) to show the exposed spine.

 

 

 

The binding method I used is one I learned from Michelle Ward at CREATE this past summer.  No sewing at all!  Pages are attached to one another with strips of paper and strong glue. In Michelle's class we used tyvek, but I used decorative paper, which the artists can incorporate into their work or ignore and cover completely.  I'm leaving that up to them.

 

 

 

The back cover I left plain. 

 

 

 

To get my party started I chose a cabinet card that has some special meaning for me.  According to what I read, the couple in the photo came from a town in the Ukraine called Brody.  My paternal grandmother's maiden name was Brody, which I always thought odd.  I thought Brody was an Irish name, and imagined that it probably started out as something like Brodsky and was shortened by immigration, as was often the case back then.  Now I'm wondering if her name was something else altogether, something not understood by the folks on Ellis Island, so they just gave her the name of her home town.  Remember how young Vito Corleone got his name in the Godfather?  Anyway, here is my first page.  I haven't written the story behind it yet.

 

 

 

I won't be working on that story for a while.  This afternoon I leave for Connecticut and what I know will be a fabulous week at Art Is You.

 

 

 

Everyone I've spoken to agrees that this is one of the finest mulit-teacher art retreats around.  If you live on the east coast and haven't signed up for classes, they're not all filled and it isn't too late.  Hope to see you there!