Natalie Raymond

watercolours:

portrait.

abstract.

passion.

more obsessions on tumblr.

-N

The other day I made my first trip to A.I. Friedman on 18th street. It's basically an art supplies department store. I am in the process of making a collage for a class & I decided that I wanted to get some things to make that go smoothly. I've never actually bought any real art supplies before, so I've never really had the ability to make anything like the kinds of collages I enjoy looking at. But I've been looking at all these Lillianna Pereira collages online (I saw some of her work at a gallery show in NYC ages ago & immediately fell in love with it), & I wanted to try to make something decent.

I purchased:

Soft gel medium.

Gesso.

Watercolour paints.

1 tube pinkish acryilc paint.

2 canvas boards, 5x7.

I'd read some how-tos online for making images transfers using gel medium (like this one), & I thought I'd give it a shot. A few days before I'd gotten some images from various sources of subway cars & tracks (the physical subject of the project). I set to work tranferring a NYC Subway map onto my canvas board.

It worked! It's amazing! It was so much fun! I was finally actually able to make a collage like the ones I'm interested in! Yay!

It was interesting too, how it differs from Poetry. For me, when making Poetry you have to know (or at least have a rough idea) about where you're going & what you want to say. When making collage I felt as if I was just putting the pieces together. Like a puzzle.

I've also decided to focus more on small sizes. I've always been very interested in making these HUGE epic collages or visual art pieces, but now I think the smaller the better. I think what makes me appreciate Ms. Pereira's work so much is how intricate & precise it is. I think that's what I'll shoot for from now on.

It's still a work in progress, so don't judge me on it, but here's where I am so far:

The gold boarder is going. I'm going to put something else in its place, something more monochrome. The idea is that the subway is a kind of angel of death. I was on a train that hit & killed a person in Brooklyn a few weeks ago & I was wondering what it would look like to have that train barreling down on you... I imagine it would turn into a kind of devotional image, like the Catholic images of saints (or more specificially, the Virgin Mary, whose usual pose the collage is based on).

Anyway, I kind of like it, & I think I'll try to do more collage/visual stuff in the future. You don't have to think so much about it.

N

p.s.

I've updated the visuals page to include more interesting stuff. & I've added a videos page to put up my (extremely amateur) video work.

I went to the New York Public Library on Tuesday. They have an exhibit filled with all kinds of various book related materials; the walking stick Virginia Woolf's husband found floating in the river after she drown herself, the glasses Jack Kerouac wore, the Koran Malcom X prayed with...

My favourite- a huge letter opener that belonged to Charles Dickens (Tuesday was his 200th birthday), whose handle is made from the taxidermied paw of his much loved cat.

It's incredibly bizarre. Like something from a sideshow. The fur faded ivory to match the blade...

It looks more like a sword. But perhaps he needed it that way...

I mean, I have no idea what kind of letters Charles Dickens had to open. They could have been quite large....

[journal 07.02.2012]

Adele:

Kimbra:

I have been obsessively journaling all day.

A new video poem, Five, is posted at online Ekphrastic literary journal; A Foolish Consistency. It is in response to a five of coins tarot card from the Renaissance Tarot Deck.The journal was founded by fellow poet, L. John R., & I've recently joined the editorial board.