This piece is a composition of old toys that I can never seem to place in other pieces. It is difficult to work in colorful plastic objects into works that are often minimalist, neutral, and rusty. So they get their own piece. 

While it is mostly a haphazard composition, I did try to select only objects that had primary colors, skin tones, or black and white to keep things cohesive. 

I also love the shadow play in this top section. It is much more striking in person, so when I get this one up in a gallery you should come see it. 

Enjoy some photos while I struggle to find a title for this piece.

Tiny Industry

While I am making an effort to create bigger artworks, I can't get away from the tiny ones. 

This is my submission for the Nashville Tiny Gallery.  The piece is 1.25"x 1.25" and made of tiny screws, gears, wires, and fuses. 

Everything is mounted on a bigger wooden gear with a felt base.

The hot glue marks drive me crazy on this, but it's as good as I could get it on this scale. :/

What Makes Us Tick, Tick, Tick

I keep coming back to anatomy as a theme. I love old technical drawings and illustrations of how things work, especially anatomical renderings. This piece is an exploration of black and white based on anatomy.

The skeleton fit so perfectly in this space that he inspired the whole theme.

I placed a jar with a tooth over a drawing of a mandible with some pearls.

The clock face is from an old pocket watch from the collection of parts I won from an art challenge ages ago.

Another drawing, this one of a rib cage with a small metal heart.

The large section has the number 206 in the background.

The last section is clock gears to tie in with the "ticking" theme.

Center Stage

This is the last piece in my Circus series, at least for a while. This one features a plastic zebra, a metal crown, and lace set in a clear encaustic fill with black incisions.

 

I also added some drops of colored encaustic paint in primary colors to balance the black and white and to tie it in with the other circus pieces.

 The background image is a sketchy rendition of a circus crowd with a simple scumble for the audience.

Forest Magic

This piece is a simple nature-themed assemblage in a small glass case. I kept with a yellow & brown color palette with natural tones. 

I added little "magic" touches like a "crystal ball" and a wand. Slightly fairy tale.

Wonderland

A collection of objects and drawings that I've gathered over the years to finally create an "Alice in Wonderland" themed assemblage. I've been asked before to create an Alice piece, but I've never had the right inspiration to find the best composition. Inspired by the drawings in the background of my Lurking piece, I was able to make an assemblage with a neutral color palette and a minimalist composition.

The top section is a clear wax fill over a handwritten exerpt from the opening of the story with a pocket watch embedded. 

I used the same technique over a stamped background with embedded keys. 

Other objects such as doll legs, bottles, cards, keyholes, teacups, and natural materials were added in other sections. Plus that cute rabbit that I'm proud of. 

Lurking

This is a nautical work that I've been staring at for a couple of years. I was trying to add too many things and it wasn't working out. I finally got it finished because I concentrated on the background instead of the objects. I did an illustration of three sea creatures and kept the found objects minimal. 

I added a few objects and did a shallow wax fill. Very happy with this one. 

Grimm

this is a fairy tale themed assemblage. imagery is kind of predictable, but it's something i felt i needed to do. 8"x8".