Cheryl Penn Artworks

This is the complete series fully blogged on IUOMA – BUT the photos are worth another look.   A drawing is simply taking a line for a wall – Paul Klee.  These images speak of every sort of line.

This is my favorite photograph

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Nancy Bell Scott (USA) sent me this beautiful piece – on the back it reads "Not every path wants to be seen".  And the note: Made for you Peach, post-vispo and pre-boekies on music and books" – I am going to use this beauty as the cover for the collaborative vispo book co-coordinated on IUOMA.

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From Rob Grant – Mayor of Inkovia, a place not in the vicinity of Australia – a prototype – which is good news – it means there will be another one of these – what will resolution accomplish in change I wonder? And who will house the Grasshopper Collective?

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RCBz has been a sort of Custodian of Mona, since I started the Mona Lisa mail art call.  He submitted Medi-Alert Mona and then the Not the Dulwich Gallery image where he had digitally assembled all the  Mona Lisa’s off my blog.  As every good gallery should have, RCBz created a card rack. The Cards From the Rack series were created by RCBz from the works that had not fitted on the gallery walls.  R has sent me the whole series, BEAUTIFULLY printed in both a postcard format and a high gloss A4 version.  The A4 version carries the titles RCBz has given the new digital images.  As these have been blogged intermittently on iuoma before, I know you may have seen them, BUT as a series they are fantastic! 

First off, RCBz quoting Marie Wintzer  (Japan) – Zeuxis informing the Maidens of Croton that he is unable to replicate the “Mona Lisa” look.  Zeuxis, under the influence of Apollodorus made great use of light and shadow, but, well even he was unable to replicate the tinfoil look…  (Reworking of Zeuxis et les Filles de Crotone – François-André Vincent, 1789).

And in complete contrast, Torma Cauli (Budapest) placed his Mona as Budapest Street Art. RCBz perfectly situated her – Magyar Motor Cycle Monthly’s March Pin-Up: Mona Lisa.

Janine Weiss (Switzerland) broke Mona into an intricate puzzle.  The REAL question on RCBz’s mind – who knows how many feet she had? 3 Mules for Mona.  Girls Night Out utilizes TICTAC’s’ sweety pie Mona Lisa.  I KNOW those are  animated characters from a movie (?) but I never watch those things – help??

ARAC (USA) sent RCBz this Mona Lisa – Stolen – by Shepherd Fairey (?) – RCBz takes us to the heist van with Give a little now, Get a little later – where art only exists if faireys are arrested – what’s this now – 15 arrests?  I think Fairey would LOVE to get his hands on The Scream. Alicia Starr has sent in many very evocative images of Mona Lisa as representations of ‘every woman’.  This interpretation by RCBz was a real side-swipe entry to me – it certainly answers a few questions on how those gals MAINTAIN! The secret? They have this place they go to Where Supermodels renew their mojo…

Let Mona Lisa Light Up your Life (with Nancy Bell Scott) – she sits alone, nails freshly painted – she can still smell the polish over the smoke, waiting, for someone who may not come.  But Mona keeps her company.  The Road of Excess leads to the Hallway of Unfulfillable Expectations  (quoting ViZma Bruns) – I suppose the passageways and roads of unfulfilled expectation  are the halls of frustration. Places of mourning filled with dead mens bones.

This was a new card on the rack  based on my images in The Authentic Massacre of the Innocent Image series – always Maintain an even strain. RCBz wrote of this “her neighbor is a debauchee, her daughter is in flagranté, sharks ascend her staircase, her tea arrives from China one cup at a time, and yet, Mona maintains an even strain" – I can only wish…

And last but not least, RCBz sent me two further Mona Lisa Images – Mona Lisa in Samurai dress and then the same image with a facial change.  This leads to another whole chain of thought about the juxtaposition of east and west and the influence of costume and aesthetic style. Perhaps further – how far can a portrait be altered until it no longer resembles  the  original AT ALL yet is still recognizable as being inspired by – in this case, Leonardo’s Mona Lisa.   This was a fantastic haul.  MANY thanks RCBz – good to have you on-side!

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A Written Oracle or A Book about Books by Marie Wintzer

For Cheryl Penn’s

New Alexandrian Library.  That’s the things about being a Hypatia and no potential raids and scroll burnings on the horizon – you get written oracles.  I’m taking ‘oracle’ here as a vision or a forewarning – Torquin you see, a Genki from my dream series makes an appearance and from the cover I knew this tale, whatever it is was going to be good.  This is STILL one of my favorite photographs taken by Marie – I think in Prague?

So lets begin.  Attached to the first page is an Autumn Fortune. It tells Torquin to be cautious and wait for his time to come.  He was going to have A LOT of troubles in the beginning.  The trouble involves quite a few characters – each more disparate than the other – The Bully, The Cat, The Dolls and overleaf The Vanishing Cream (that’s the lucky part), The Grown-up, The Burglar and Peter.

Autumn tells Torquin that Words are haunting his dreams – they want their own house so they can stick together, but Autumn is in trouble – he is NOT the book fairy…

After wading through books with covers older than 200 years, holding words as sprightly as toddlers, Autumn falls into The Bookworms Soup of the day – it’s an Alphabetical  Soup for the Immediate Propagation of  Ideas (ASIPI).  Autumn tells Torquin they HAVE to start their own business – “growing Bookworms. A whole Garden of them – A Plantation of BookWorms – as Autumn notes – “Filiberts Bookmark Plantation is well known beyond the borders of Tachiwara”.

But Torquin has a question on his mind and he says to Autumn – “What does it look like inside a Bookbinders Mind?”

Confession – its also a bit like Text in Knots.

A BEAUTIFUL book – thank you Sweetest Pea XX

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This is a very interesting book from Rodni.  I can FEEL the handmade quality to the book – a good interpretation of intent and adhesion to the title.  The book is haptic and the content fully in line with the book title – this is a good piece.

The Bonus Material First – an artists notebook, filled with jottings, notes, addresses, doodles and  drawings.

The center spread:

Handbook – a few images:

At the back of Handbook the is a pocket into which the following were tucked.

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From Imelda Wubben (Netherlands)  – Lamento Largo

From Katerina Nikoltsou (Greece) A Book About Books.  Using illustrations which appear in Late Antique and Early Christian Book – illuminated by Kurt Weitzmann,, and reprinted on a kind of vellum,  Katerina used an accordion book, beautifully made to house her thoughts on books.

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