Fi Webster's photos

Cut-paper collage 8 1/2" x 11"

Background fashioned from rubber stamps. Other images from Taschen's "Mid-Century Ads" calendar.

Surfing in February? Yes indeed. February is the month when the monster waves, 30-40 feet, come rollin' onto the north coast of Oahu. They pound the sand so hard that if you're standing on the beach too close it feels like an earthquake. It can knock you off your feet!

Mr. Bones was excited to attend church bingo night with the theme of "Myths & Legends." He got started on his card, but then a call came in on his bone phone, and he had to step out to take the call. Unfortunately, he bingoed more than once while he was gone, but he couldn't collect the prizes because he wasn't there to cry out "Bingo!" The imagery in each square derives from a specific myth or legend. In Column 1 Row 5, for example, is the story of Cupid and Venus. In Column 4 Row 4 is that of Saturn eating his children. The artists include William Blake, Hieronymus Bosch, Sandro Botticelli, Agnolo Bronzini, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Francisco de Goya, Gustave Doré, Caspar David Friedrich, Tonie Roos, Salomen Trismosin and Ferdinand von Wright. Mr. Bones is a Zapotec interpretation of the Aztec God of Death, 1300 C.E. I hope the concept of church bingo night is not too obscure for our friends across the pond. =smile=

Created for Kollage Kit theme: "Myths and Legends (and Hoaxes & Fakes).” Artist Jon Foster, of IUOMA (International Union of Mail Artists), mails "Add and Return" cards to anyone who sends him their mailing address. The template for what you see here is one of those cards, modified by yours truly with cut-paper collage, rubber stamps, and markers. Why "No Laughing Matter?" Because even though American TV comedians (including news commentators) are having a heyday of humor since the Combover Clown was elected President, I'm afraid I'm not laughing. Donald J. Trump may not be the Great Cthulhu, from whom several myths derive—frankly, I doubt he's intelligent enough to be one of Lovecraft's Elder Gods—but it seems to me he's at the center of a tentacular network of greed and corruption. Even, eventually, of bloodshed. I sometimes use frames to set off material that I don't wish to consciously acknowledge: hence, a brown frame with images of fertility/creativity goddesses wearing the pink knitted "kitty hats" that women wore during the March on Washington and at other protests.

Cut-paper collage created for Kollage Kit theme "Food." Flag background by Chandra Glick. Melon pics by William Rowe. Snippet of still life (Dole pineapple, Breakstone yogurt, usw.) by Tom Wessellmann.

Cut-paper collage 5 1/2" x 6" Face in egg cup by Odilon Redon. Those wartime sensibilities... hard to fathom. I can't help thinking that the eggs are going to crack open and drench those fires with their contents.

Cut-paper collage postcard for Kollage Kit theme "The Birds." Drawings of crows (standing) from all over the world by Gregory L. Blackstock. Their raggedy wings by yours truly. Other critters: green elf's cup, trumpeter hornbill, collared anteater.

Cut-paper postcard for swap-bot theme of "Janus for January." Title from Chapter 42 of the Tao Te Ching : Tao gives birth to one, One gives birth to two, Two gives birth to three, Three gives birth to ten thousand beings. Ten thousand beings carry yin on their backs and embrace yang in their front, Blending these two vital breaths to attain harmony.

Cut-paper collage postcard created for Kollage Kit theme "Creepy Christmas." In case you can't read what the grumpy cat (underneath reindeer's shark head) is saying: "It's the most terrible time of the year."

Cut-paper collage postcard created for Kollage Kit theme "Ephemeral, Ephemeron, Ephemera." Background is fibrous paper with acrylic paint and rubber stamps. Click image to enlarge it, and read bottom row (French, English, German) for more information.

Cut-paper collage postcard 8 1/2" x 9 1/2" The notion that not just humans, but other animals on the planet, leave ephemera in their wake is fascinating to me. So to celebrate one of the more spectacular examples of Nature's ephemera, I photographed a fossil tooth I have of C. megalodon , the largest shark that ever lived, considered by most taxonomists to be an ancestor of today's great white shark, C. carcharias . Why does a shark tooth count as ephemera? Because shark teeth grow in what's referred to as a "conveyer belt," each tooth that gets shed being quickly replaced by a newer, sharper one that rolls forward into place. As for the big shark that shed this tooth, here is a a useful diagram . The red and grey sharks are the conservative and maximum estimates of Megalodon's size, the maximum being 20 meters (67 feet). (!) The violet shark is a whale shark, the largest shark extant today. The green shark is a great white, and there's a black human figure for scale. My own Megalodon tooth is not all that large: just 4 3/4" (12.1 cm) tall. They can be as tall as 7 1/2" (19.1 cm). I purposely photographed my tooth with some shadow showing, to give you a sense of what it's like in 3-D. Rest of the collage: Background from an old map of southern India. Ephemera include advertisements, greeting cards, fortune-telling cards, Loteria cards, pharmacy labels, ration tickets, other tickets, and cancelled postage stamps. Artistamps & their cancellations: bananas by Anna Banana, bunny-cum-airplane by the fabulous C. T. Chew.

Cut-paper collage created for Kollage Kit theme: "Sources &/or Storage (Open Theme)" Source: contemporary magazines, scientific journals, postcards, and catalogs; all clipped before snipping, and stored in boxes labeled by color. Now this one is more my style... not Christmassy at all.

Cut-paper collage postcard created for Kollage Kit theme: "Sources &/or Storage (open theme)" The title is a joke on Stendhal's novel Le rouge et le noir . Source: All images from the Artful Home catalog.

Cut-paper collage created for Kollage Kit theme: "Tools for Making Collage Art" Tools used: stencils. For each shape, I turned the paper upside-down and used a wide variety of stencils (alphanumeric, geometric, etc.)--the stencil images stuck to each other to create weird shapes.

I love the paper I made this envelope with: I may have to buy another whole pack of the 1950s collection it came from, just so I can make LOTS of envelopes with it. (Details about where I got the paper available on request. =smile=) The artistamp of hand w/ bandages by the amazing C. T. Chew. U.S. postage stamp in upper right is a photo of Edith Piaf.

Cut-paper collage postcard created for the Kollage Kit theme: "Unusual Tools for Making Collage Art" Except for the background, all images snipped from postcards of the fabric collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Tools used: brush-tip and chisel-tip markers. The images are thick, from postcard stock. When you work w/ thick elements, the recipient of your postcard can see the white insides of the cardboard pieces. So I hit on the idea, a few years ago, of using markers to color those white edges, before I glue them down. That way the images do a better job of "melting" into the collage. For the blue-&-white Morris pieces in the middle, I used an indigo blue marker. For all the others, I used a black marker. Usually I also color the outside edge of my collage postcard, but it doesn't seem necessary for that light background. (The black marks you see in the brown areas surrounding the women, etc., are part of the fabric pattern.) You can see how especially on the blue-&-white pieces, the marker bled a little bit, giving them outlines of blue, more obvious in some places than in others. I don't consider that a problem. =smile= Tip: When you're coloring the edges, hold the collage piece so that the white or other color of the opposite side is facing you. Why? Because if the marker slips a bit while you're moving it along the edge, it will tend to slip toward you, onto the back side of the image. That way, you don't accidentally make a stray mark on the image itself.

Cut-paper collage 8 1/2" x 11" Here's the scoop on what "Nature abhors a vacuum" (Aristotle) means in the art world. In case you can't read the caption in the lower right that explains what the four pinkish-red monsters are about, it says, "Night Terrors (detail), oil on panel, by Laurie Hogin, reflect the various stages of psychological disruption due to the use of prescription drugs during the eight hours intended for restorative sleep."