Ikebana Bird

arrangement and photo Toile La La

Paper bird on dried stem "tree" among white gladiola, purple buddleia (butterfly bush), spherical rattlesnake master, black eyed susan, and bachelor buttons.  More at the Toile La La blog.

Collage: Landscapes and Atmosphere.

Dusk collage image - Toile La La

Dusk collage - image detail

Dusk collage by Toile La La - detail

Splash collage by Toile La La, 6.9.15

This past winter, I began to explore landscapes through collage. Previously, most of my artwork celebrated fashion - but more and more I revel in the splendour of landscape, architecture, and especially atmospheric conditions. 

Mail Art...Bunches.

Mail, mail art, and extremely interesting envelopes, letters, and ephemera ...that's what I have after 2 years of steady sending and receiving of correspondence - a shoebox full. 

I suppose my interest in mail art was inspired by books - all the Nick Bantock books, and the Good Mail Day book by Jennie Hinchcliff and Carolee Gilligan Wheeler.  

But I've always liked mail... corresponding with my cousin as a child, and with pen pals in France and Great Britain as a teen.  My Great Aunt - a math whiz - (with whom I really shared very few common interests) began sending me letters in college... and I can still picture them today - very very small, orderly handwriting - closely spaced lines utilizing conservatively every fraction of paper.  And, during the same time, my mother once mailed me a whisker the cat had shed.  The cat seemed as close to me then as any family member, so to discover that memento was a charming surprise.

Here - some of the latest correspondence, much of it decorated with vintage ephemera, paper bits and stamps from my friend E:

toile la la mail and mail art

toile la la mail art collage

two letters to E - at top - and one, from - at lower left

Notice above the two tiger stamps - one roaring... I love those big cats!

toile la la mail art - altered vintage cancelled stamp

Not long ago, E sent me a little packet of stamps from her collection she has been saving since her pre-teen years (and we aren't babies anymore, so she's preserved this collection for quite some time).  Sometimes, I add them to the letters I send her - to surprise her with her own shared treasures.  She gets to revisit her old stamps.  E didn't like the position of the arms on the Caroline Neuber stamp - so I gave Caroline a new pose.

package from E  - toile la la image

I love to look through my shoebox full of correspondence because there is so much variety and many times I discover something I may have missed upon first receiving an item... such as this photo.  E decorated the outside of a mailer with this vintage photo - and I did notice the rollercoaster originally.  But sorting through the box of mail yesterday, I noticed this lady, holding something which looks so much like a big fashion magazine.  It reminds me of myself... not because of how this lady looks - but because to think that she might be standing there at an amusement park holding a fashion magazine seems both humorous and familiar.  I am one of those people too who would choose a fashion magazine over a rollercoaster ride most days! 

toile la la stitched mail art image

And here is some of my mail art to E.  For some time now I've been enjoying using my sewing machine to embellish paper - and one of my favorite stitching patterns is something like a zigzag, but more like ocean waves.  You'll see me use the same stitching pattern on other creations here and at the Toile La La blog.  An earlier post (which also features my Number One Good Luck Employee Cat) shows a large shoebox full of vintage ephemera E sent me... which was a really exciting thing to dig through.  This old handwritten letter, written on hotel stationery, is an item I pulled from E's shoebox.  The illustrated buildings already stood in front of drawn puffy clouds - which I wanted to emphasize.  Because the paper is old - from the mid 20th century - the stitching carved a few holey spaces, but I like the look of these perforations and lacy holes - which are particularly lovely when you hold them to the light.

Revolutionary Prom Idea: The New Prom Date.

Prom - Please now Imagine the word Prom spoken by Tim Curry - perhaps after he's eaten too many wonderful, sticky, gooey, yicky candies and is offered yet one more.

Prom spoken by Tim Curry using his A Series of Unfortunate Events reading-voice.

Prom with its scurrying and hurrying flurry of excitement about who will be seen with whom and the plight and the doom thereafter.

Prom with its too tight too shiny too too too-ness whizzing by in a stretch limousine woofers-thumping hot-tubness.

Prom with its unfortunate accidents of excess indulgence.

Now Please Imagine the New and Improved Prom Date: A Stack of Books.  No worries of the cummerbund or tie or boutonniere matching your dress and corsage.

The books won't vomit on you after too many post-prom liquor-infused melon-balls.

The books won't grope you as the lights dim, or sneak a feel as they pin your corsage... they have no hands with which to do these things.  Books are full of page after page of goodness and knowledge.  Books don't look at you - with disappointment because you don't want to do what they want you to do and they do not frown when you don't look like they want you to look.  A book is a book and you are in charge of choosing it wisely and can very easily drop it in the library's book-drop if you don't like it.  Can you do that with any other prom date?  I think not... although, it might be nice.

For a start, if you'd like a prom date who does all the talking - look for any of Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events audiobooks - some are narrated by Tim Curry.

Here is an imaginary prom photo - imagined by Toile La La... maybe it is Toile La La - in another time, or dimension... all the details are not quite there... the scene (typical of imagined time) is hazy.

Books:  The New Prom Date - illustrated by Toile La La at Art Fashion Creation, February 2013.

A large park - somewhere in France, not in the hustle and bustle... but somewhere discreet.  The early morning is crisp with fog - with droplets of moisture in the atmosphere.  It's chilly enough for the complexion to produce a natural blush and glow. The sky: grey-white with puffs of dove-blue clouds - rain is in the forecast, but still hours away.

Someone has thoughtfully canopied a grove of trees. Lush, green nature provides the prom scenery. Scattered among verdant leaves and fragrant flora are elegant sofas.

Birdsong and the sound of fountains decorate the air.

The Look Here:
Hair - Marie Antoinette piled-high with powder. Embellished with pink velvet flowers and silver leaves.
Maquillage - Silver eye-gloss, silver lip-creme... nothing else.
Scent - peppermint, spearmint, clove.
Sofa - Porcelain-pink high gloss scrollwork, linen vintage toile print.
Dress - Bisque white taffeta with pale tulle overlays, black velvet ruched waist - accented with dove-blue velvet rose and black tulle flourish.
Gloves - Porcelain pink soft, brushed cloth.

The Footwear and The Books are concepts with potential, still being imagined. 

This imagined foot attire is - in concept - like boxer's fist-bindings, but the fit is comfortable and secure... "mummy boots" is a name that comes to mind.  Mummy Boots are soft and suede-like with visible wrappings, zip-on or slip-on:  a dancer's best friend.  Dance in them for hours, then get back to your books.

Why don't you create your own date?  Write some books or fill them with sketches or make fake books from trompe l'oeil-ed packages or papier mache.

Stay tuned for DIY prom-formal fashion ideas in an upcoming Art Fashion Creation post. 

(And here they are - all 25!  Ideas for creating your own look from head to toe... you don't even have to sew.)

And now... a poem:

PROM... it

rhymes with

VOM... IT.

But not with a stack of books for a prom date.

Denver Art Museum's Fashion Studio

Stocked with fabrics, dress forms, mini design mannequins, magazines for inspiration collages, scissors, light-tables, coloring tools, (and for aspiring models: clothing, hats, a runway, and large mirrors), the Denver Art Museum Fashion Studio is a great playground for people interested in the creation of fashion and its presentation.

Even though my Colorado visit just barely missed Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective exhibit, DAM's Fashion Workshop helped bridge the gap. 

After spying the art supplies and magazines (and large, inviting, manila cardstock), I was anxious to return to the fashion space... though my thorough museum visits are notoriously excruciating to family members.  This museum visit was doubly pleasurable in that it offered the opportunity to create - within the stimulating museum environment.

Toile La La fantasy collage created in Denver Art Museum Fashion Studio. 

For some time now, my imagination has been consumed primarily by thoughts of hats - so this was an opportunity to have fun with some outlandish millinery designs.  Tearing through the provided architectural, fashion, home design, and interview magazines - I gathered a nice stack of images.

What you see above are (clockwise from the seated model with the rose hat): an idea for a "real, live, gigantic rose chapeau", a papier mache sculpture hat... composed of smiling Buddha faces, a rooster wig (that looks like a rooster... not FOR a rooster), a bright geranium red cardboard house bonnet - that ties under the chin, a "garden jumper" that grows real foliage (those are Kesha's feet wearing Y-3 socks and Kenzo shoes - which appeared in Interview magazine), an illuminating lamp hat, a "wacky" skirt, and a mannequin-look dress (with a nod to the Martin Margiela Semi-Couture collection).

There wasn't time to note all the collage sources - such as the graphic artist who created the great image I used for the "wacky skirt", but if you see an image you recognize - please leave a comment to enable me to give attribution to the artists and designers who inspired this collage.

Not only did the museum provide this great fashion workspace, it has also hosted fashion demonstration workshops in fashion illustration, styling, design and construction, upcycling, draping and patternmaking, and fashion design with Adobe Illustrator. There is still an upcoming Adobe illustration tutorial August 19 and later - a fashion illustration demonstration August 25 and 26 and September 1 and 2.

Thank you, Denver Art Museum.

• If you liked the collage, some of my older ones (incorporating watercolor) are at this link.
• There are also some collage-type paper dolls here.