AUTUMN IN TUSCANY

(Click to enlarge)

Top picture: Front and back covers of journal when closed

Second picture: September page and "inside cover" of journal

Third picture: October and November pages

While cleaning out my closets for my rummage sale, I ran across these pieces. I had submitted them to Somerset Seasons magazine for one of their themed-submission invitations.

These items were rejected by SS and returned to me. I was devastated. As much as I admired the magazine, I never submitted an entry to them again. What hurt the most is not the rejection but the reason for the rejection: that my entries did not fit their theme. The theme: Autumn in Tuscany. Now, I ask you, why do these not fit the theme? I'm not saying my entries were any good, but they were created especially to fit the theme, and I think in that respect I followed through.

I was especially ticked that some of the entries they published in that issue had themes which had nothing to do with Autumn in Tuscany (Native American, for example).

For the accordion book - The Travel Journal of Millicent Mowbray - I created a tryptich on the front and back sides for six pages total. For the September and October pages, I show a turn-of-the-century lady on her grand tour of Italy in Autumn 1912. On the December page, I show her back at home, writing her memories and creating her scrapbook.

(sorry, I cut off the top border in the scan)

For this picture, Autumn in the Vineyard, I created a vignette of grapes, sunflowers, cypress trees, a lady in a hat with sunflowers and a table a deux with vino. Is that not quintessential Autumn in Tuscany?

My third entry was the Italian Fever collage I have already posted on this blog. Okay, maybe this one is a stretch, but it does feature autumn colors, fall leaves and nuts, and harvested figs, pears and grapes.

AND AGAIN, MORE COLLAGE POSTS

For my dear friend Lila, who loves "Mamma Mia"

"WHERE ARE THEY NOW?" (VERSION II)

(The little girls we once were)

"TAGS"

"HERE'S THE SCOOP" (using table napkins)

"PINK IS THE NEW BLACK"

(for Lila and Carmen)

STILL MORE COLLAGE POSTS

"COME AND SEE MY SHINING PALACE

BUILT UPON THE SAND"

My tribute to Edna St. Vincent Millay

"MERMAID MUSINGS" for my dear friend C.N.

"MERMAID PAPER DOLLS" for my dear friend Lila

"MARY OLIVER QUOTE, OVERLEAF"



"MARY OLIVER QUOTE"

"MILLAY'S SHINING PALACE" VERSION II

"GRACE"

(The light and dark lines do not show up on the original)

MORE COLLAGE PAGES

"WHERE ARE THOSE LITTLE GIRLS?"

"FLYING DREAMS"

"EUROPE BECKONS"

"CARL SAGAN"

"A DAISY SUMMER"

(In memory of our dear late blogging friend "Daisy Lupin")

"CROW TOTEM"

It was difficult for me to "give away" some of these pages. I knew, when I did them, that they would be going around to all the round robin members and finally to the altered book's original owner. I had saved some of these images for a long time. But then I realized that I do have copies of all of them and that is, in a way, almost as good as the real thing. For in these images, one cannot see the globbed up glue spots, the hesitancy, the repositioning, the "do-overs". As long as Blogger exists, my work will exist!

CATCHING UP

"FEATHERED FRIENDS"

"SAGE WOMAN, PAGE I"

"SAGE WOMAN, PAGE II"

"WILD WOMEN"

"A LEONARD COHEN LADY"

"CLAIRE"

I have sorely neglected this blog (as I have my book blog). Truly, what I have learned, belatedly, from other bloggers, is that it is hard to maintain one blog, let alone three.

These pages are from sets of pages (some how I always had to work in sets of two) I did for a round robin collage among six of us artists from March through August last year (although I really cringe to call myself an artist). I can't believe how prolific I was at that time. I have not gone into my "art studio" since last fall, when the challenge was finished.