MADONNA CONFIDENTIAL
I got back to some traditional art this weekend. Being back in school on the fine art side of the campus has brought me back to that soulful place. I have especially enjoyed my clay class, the feel of the cool clay in my hands and the way that I feel when I'm putting a design into it when it's dried a bit, is just something so down to earth that it's hard to put into words how it feels. But I can tell you this much, it feels wonderful.

I decided to do something with a 1996 calendar I had been saving with these wonderful old Madonna paintings for each month. So I did this collage on a piece of black mat board. It's an odd size; 17 3/4 by 11 3/4. I used newspaper and gesso for the background, then made transparencies and tape transfers for added interest. The vines are stamped with gold ink and the mountain bluebird was cut from a magazine. I used a piece of plastic grid to make the gold texture by covering it with gold gesso and pressing it onto the surface.

THE KEWPIE KING & WHAT'S NEW
Another digital collage. Just messing around. Lots of layers on this one. Used photos from sxc.hu again, along with some of my own.

With encouragement from some of my teachers, I decided that since I've not gotten a job since I got out of school, that I'm going to take my art studies further, with an eye toward a masters degree.

My classes this semester will be all art studies to transfer to a local private university. I am looking forward to lots of studio classes, including a photography class and a clay class, which will be completely new to me.

BABY BLUE
This is another digital ATC piece. It is inspired by a documentary I saw recently about a refugee family that moved to the USA from Sudan to try and start a better life. Instead, they lost their youngest child to a mysterious illness not long after moving into their new apartment.

After much research into the death of the child, it was determined that she died from lead poisoning. Specifically, she had been eating paint chips off the porch of the apartment where she often played. The building was old and the death could have been prevented had the landlord simply informed the tenants that the danger existed, which, by law, he was required to do. But instead of putting the money into repainting the porches, he instead was forging signatures onto forms which should have been signed by the tenants, informing them of the hazard. He was convicted of fraud and held responsible for the death of the little girl. Her name was Sunday. She was only two years old.