Art at Year's End

I worked hard to make fifty Christmas Cards and soon after completing them realized I should have made seventy or a hundred! I learned a lot in the process that combined monoprints with enhancements by Prisma Color and paint. Fun work that next year, I promise myself, I won’t put off so long nor approach my holiday projects in such a conservative manner. Of course I don’t know what I’ll be doing next year although it may include a trip to Mid-Missouri to spend the year-end holiday with my children and grandchildren. Que sera, sera, I sing. 

I was pleased with the cards I made and with the many, many Artist Trading Cards I made at the same time. I’ve kept at that production to make ready for two trades in January. One set is done; the other awaits a real idea! Oh well, that’s the way so much art goes, certainly my own.

I watch January’s approach wondering what cards I will make that first week for the second Saturday trade. I’m sure something will occur to me to make cards I’d be happy to trade! I’m sure you will see some of the next week. Promises… promises…

I’m not much for making New Year’s resolutions and probably will not bother myself to make any now. I do know I’ll make several hundred Artist Trading Cards, will make many mixed media pieces, revisit my petroglyphs in new ways, keep art journals as well as my regular writing journal, write many stories about my life (my weekly challenge for the story telling group I lead), finish the manuscript I’m currently writing about a relationship I had with Rafael Martinez back in 2002, and draw a lot of plants and flowers to use for general cards.

It sounds like a busy year with many new things to discover. I will also give a lot of attention to art printing from lino- and wood-blocks. Wish me well. I wish you a happy new year!

Denver, 2015

Art Deco Artist Trading Cards

Artist Trading Cards by Phillip Hoyle

Artistic style changes thus creating what art historians call periods. Art Deco began in Europe in the 1920s and some years later spread to America. It was the design, architectural, and craft style that can be seen as distinct with its use of geometric designs, metal, inlays, and so forth. The style was widely used in public art works during the Great Depression of the 1930s and extended into the early 40s.

The prompt for last week’s Artist Trading Cards trade was Art Deco. To meet it I searched for ideas online and in books. I settled on letters (the development of new print fonts were big in the period), skyscrapers (think of NYC’s Chrysler Center and the Empire State Building, and the use of ancient motifs in a modern architectural environment (my fancy talk). Anyway the challenge occupied my mind and quite a few hours. I drew, experimented with stamps, made a mess, cleaned it up, and voila, I completed nineteen ATC’s.

Working in this tiny (2 ½ x 3 ½ inch) format is a great way to experiment with technique and to use up leftover scraps of art materials, all those things you just can’t bear to throw away. I figure as long as I can afford glue, I can make these cards for years! And the work area doesn’t have to be large. If I ever end up living in a tiny house, I can keep making these tiny pieces of art!

Have a good art week and a happy holiday.

Denver, 2015

Artist Trading Cards by Phillip Ho

Parades of Lights

Star on Christmas Card monoprints
Phillip Hoyle, 2015

Just over a week ago I watched the Denver Parade of Lights. So today I’m wondering about art and the Parade. My first experience of such a parade was in Tulsa, OK when I was singing on a float with a group of carolers. I’m not sure it was so much art as it was a friendship obligation. Still the event was festive. I don’t know what the overall artistic and affective result of the float was. I was along simply to sing loudly—the great out-of-doors required it!

This year was my first time to attend the Denver Parade. I was there with a group of friends and enjoyed the overall experience that included a brief tour of the Brown Palace atrium with a jazz trio entertaining, children singing along with Jingle Bells and the like, and the children dancing with one another and parents. Our parade evening was off to a cute and festive start. Outdoors we saw the parade’s approach announced by safety lights spinning from golf carts. I wondered if elves could be driving them. Whoever they were, they were clad with reflective jackets. The marching bands were lighted up in special adaptations to their regular outfits—some very cleverly. I realized the invention of portable battery packs and low-watt bulbs made their glittering, moving display magical. Then there was a group of low riders with blue undercarriage lights and the car bodies each covered with as many tiny lights as were added to the huge chandelier in the Brown’s main lobby. These cars came bouncing down the street. Their presence was the most visually stunning effect of the parade.

We heard several bands play beautifully and artistically accompanied by displays of pompoms and flags and huge snowflakes. My favorite band had the least glamorous uniforms but the most enthusiastic delivery of an enthusiastic musical arrangement. I turned to an old band member, a trumpeter, in our group and exclaimed, “They’re the best band with the best arrangement.” He concurred. The other best band was a group of children playing Kazoos. They were on a wonderfully inventive float with moving parts displaying a rising-up-and-down clock tower and followed by a huge balloon of a red-wrapped holiday package adorned with glittery gold ribbon and bow. The old band guy exclaimed, “I love the Kazoo band.” I concurred.

There were more delights and I slipped into critical mode to figure out how some of these displays were better than others, an artistic decision weighing many visual factors along with the affective result among their viewers, an audience that was much more affected than critical. And there I was among them being carried into the past of memories and a present wonderland of sights and sounds. I was moved by the moving displays that combined inventiveness, engineering, precision, stamina, and so many other factors beyond design considerations. There are many things to think about in a work of art!

Denver, 2015

Star monoprint, Phillip Hoyle 2015

Christmas Stars

Star. Monoprint card by Phillip Hoyle
I titled all fifty cards the same.

I had a preacher friend who dreaded the religious holidays, especially Christmas and Easter, “What can you say that hasn’t already been said over and over again?” he whined with true exasperation. “I’m so tired of it.” I wondered if he wanted to be stellar, but even that would be traditional.

I am not so dramatic as my friend but still have to face a similar dilemma annually for my Christmas card. I don’t hope to be original, but I do hope to create something that is different for me, some experimental technique or design even when using centuries-old symbols that more recently have been overused by Madison Avenue to sell holiday presents.

This year I’m using a roller, a stencil, a stamp, and some pencils. I cut the stencil and the stamp myself and employed a printing process my artist friend Sue taught me during the past year. (I suppose this is the way I keep myself entertained in the studio.) I chose odd combinations of colors to create strange looking stars, perhaps ones that could gain the attention of modern-day magi and lead them through a cultural desert find a most holy and unexpected gift.

The ones shown here I am keeping in my collection so don’t be disappointed when you don’t receive one of them. But to summarize my card project; I made fifty monoprints with stamp and Prismacolor enhancements. Well, something like that.

Happy holidays!

Denver, 2015

These cards I'm keeping for my own collection. The process was great fun.