Oh, those mystery boxes!

I've been really slacking off on this blog because I've been too busy making work in bricolage all year. Since actually being in the studio making work is my priority, something had to suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, this blog was it - low blog on the totem pole. But now I guess I had better write a post seeing as The Conference with its Pre and Post workshops are nearly upon us. In the far reaches of the studio the Mystery Boxes have begun shuffling around and gathering their contents. Okay, okay, I hear you.

Mari Skarp, The Goat, 2008, wood, found objects, paper, rubber,
handspun wool, goat horns. Mari Skarp's bricolage work with wax
will be included in my talk at The Conference.

Wax + Bricolage Talk at The Encaustic Conference
This year I am doing a lot more research about bricolage than I have done previously in preparation for my talk on Friday, June 1st, at The Sixth International Encaustic Conference in Provincetown, Mass.  Perhaps the topic should actually be written "Bricolage + Wax" as I have found that examples abound of bricolage but work with wax is relatively more difficult to locate. I have been scouring the web to discover strong work that illustrates my definition of bricolage and have collected some wonderful examples.

Mari Skarp, Carriage, 2008. Welded steel, found objects, fabric, rubber, wire,
barren sunflower heads, photo of artist's great grandmother.  mariskarp.com

My Definition of Bricolage Revised
Looking at so much work that can be described as bricolage (with and without wax) has led me to revise or expand on my definition. Previously I had only been emphasizing the difference between bricolage and collage. I was focusing on the additional dimensionality of bricolage when compared to collage and, somewhat snarkily, calling it "muscle." Turns out some people interpreted that to mean I was claiming only bricolage had muscle, and that all other art forms lacked heft and robustness when compared to it.

Mari Skarp, Rocking Horse, 2008, welded steel, found objects,
wire, wood, horsehair.

First off, it was not my intention to dis other art forms. Secondly, I think a more meaningful definition of bricolage would also take into account its difference from assemblage or found object art. I had a hard time formulating what this difference was, but I think I finally have it:

In bricolage, the identity of individual objects is subsumed into the whole of the work. Individual objects are re-purposed and re-identified as part of the whole.

At the same time, the individual objects add a layer of meaning or content to the work as a whole because of their unique identities (which may be discovered on looking closer).

I will be talking more about this expansion of my definition and showing examples of what I mean during my talk.

Now About Those Boxes
Yes, I am getting the boxes ready for my Pre-Conference workshop on Wednesday, May 30th, and for my Post-Conference workshop on Thursday, June 7th. These workshops will be held at the wonderful Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill. Last year, if you recall, I had the boxes absolutely packed with all kinds of stuff -- much more than could ever be put on the dinky panel I supplied. I wanted to emphasize how much working with found objects depended on editing and choosing what to include. I was hoping that all my emphasis on organizational approaches to making art would help students to pull together a work that became more than "a bunch of stuff with wax on a panel ."

An action scene from one of last year's workshops showing students
opening their boxes and examining the contents. (Donna Ramsey Nevers and
unidentified hands.)

I think some students were able to conquer the over-abundance of materials that I supplied, but many had a lot of difficulty choosing what to use and packed too much on the panel. Finding a theme in the midst of all those objects also presented a problem for some.

The New Challenge
So this year, I am organizing the workshops differently. I will still have an abundance of materials and equipment (and encaustic) available for students to use, but in each Mystery Box I am only putting two panels and five or six objects -- the same objects in each box. So the challenge this year is for each student to take those same objects, use them all or only some of them, and make a strong work on one panel.

We had a lot of laughs and fun last year. Here are Donna Nevers, Joanne
Mattera, Sherrie Posternak and Binnie Birstein yucking it up.

I will also provide a list of possible themes that students might use. This list is to counteract the problems some students had last year in understanding the difference between broader, more conceptual themes and literal illustrations. With this list, I am attempting to help students think about conceptual contexts for their works.

The happy face of Peggy Epner after last year's workshop.

Then, students will have the second panel to make another work with the benefit of compositional knowledge gained from the first piece. And it will all be capped with our mini show and discussion of the works completed. Whew! Sounds like a full program. And with plenty of time-outs for laughing.

Why Bricolage?

Bricolage is a term that is beginning to be used more frequently to describe artworks made from found, recycled or ready-made materials. Such material is usually called junk, but since we are talking about fine art,  I prefer to use a term which may be considered the equivalent of "collage" except that the materials are not necessarily paper and they are not necessarily attached with glue. Perhaps "assemblage" is a more familiar term for the process we will be using, but instead of just joining together elements or objects, I want to stress the manipulation of individual elements and the submersion of elements into a completed work.

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NOTE: I am writing this blog for the students in my post-conference workshops at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill on June 8 and 9, 2011. Those workshops are titled "Making Fine Art with Unconventional Mixed Media and Encaustic."  (See the full listings on the blog for The Fifth International Encaustic Conference.)  Each workshop lasts only a day and there is a lot of ground to cover.  I thought this blog might give us a head start by getting us thinking and communicating about using the process in advance.
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This is a detail from a bricolage work by El Anatsui that is comprised of liquor bottle caps and wrappings. For more information on Anatsui's work, see my blog Art in the Studio.

Manipulation of Elements to Make a Whole
For example, in the bottle cap works by Anatasui, he has begun with found/recycled material but has transformed the material by cutting or folding the aluminum pieces into various shapes and joining them together with wire in different ways. He also sometimes shows the front of the materials and sometimes the backs. He uses found color to create pattern and shimmering effects. Notice, for instance, in the image above, that the elements have been shaped and that he has folded the corners of the strips on the right into triangles that show the silver backs of the strips. When this artwork is viewed as a whole, those silver triangles add to the shimmer and glow of the metal tapestry. The individual elements are formed into parts and organized according to a plan to make a work of fine art. You can still see the individual pieces and read the names of the liquors on close looking, and these close-up details make a more intimate connection for the viewer.

A view of one of El Anatsui's "tapestry" works made of bottle caps and wrappings. Untitled, 2007

The image below shows another way of Anatsui's folding the bottle wrappings so that even more of the back is visible. Also notice how strips are oriented in various ways so that striped patterns are created.

El Anatsui, detail from Fading Scroll

Where's the Encaustic?
Of course you will see that Anatsui does not use encaustic in his work and that the works are not attached to panels, canvases, paper or other supports. So perhaps you wonder what this work has in common with what we will be doing at Castle Hill.

My intention is to include images of works in this blog that are made from many different types of materials in addition to encaustic. I want to make the point that encaustic is just one of the elements you will be using to make the works and that the main use to which you will put encaustic is not that of a glue.  I hope that you will begin looking for examples of works that use found materials, examining how they are made and thinking about how you could include encaustic if you were to make a similar work.


Group Participation
I encourage you to post a comment with a link to bricolage works that you have made yourself or that have been made by others -- or you can email me images and I will post them to the blog. It would be nice if we could get a conversation going in advance of the workshops so that we will not be starting at square one and so that we can get to know each other a bit.


Future Topics
Other subjects that I plan to discuss on this blog are meaning or content in works of art and formal elements of composition. Perhaps you can suggest other topics that relate to bricolage?


Organization Method: The Grid
To begin our focus on organization of elements, here is another image of a bricolage work. This one is made of driftwood and other found elements that are organized in a grid. This organizing mode, first popularized in Cubist art, has become second nature to many artists. Here is a link to Joanne Mattera's post on grids and lattices in the galleries in February 2009. Perhaps you can imagine some of these pieces transformed into bricolage works.

This is Grid #3 by Bob Leibow. See more here.

So please feel free to comment, ask questions, make suggestions or send information. If you don't want to make a public comment, you can email me directly. My address is at the top right of the blog.