3 Ways

Sometimes, when I need to take a break from making shadowboxes (which is an intense process, even by my standards), I grab my Canon Rebel and head to the backyard. There is SO much you can do with action figures and a little imagination!

When the models cooperate and I've created a few good images (like the one in the middle), I take the photos into the printmaking studio and, through a really cool photo-sensitive process, I turn them into prints. Sometimes I take a headline from the Globe & Mail and add it to the print (Prepare For A Rough Ride- above). I might run off two or three prints and I tend to favour red, blue, or green.

Sometimes I feel that the finished print needs more than a headline- it needs a story. Then the print might become part of a collage, like the one at the top (Her Lips Remember). Each collage is one-of-a-kind, and features old luggage tags, vintage stamps, maps, interesting beverage labels, 1950's paper dolls, tickets, etc. I am constantly asking friends to save me their paper bits when they go on holidays, which is how I get some of my ephemera collection.

My first show at ARTspace ("Guys & Dolls") featured prints and collages that were made from some of my backyard exploits. I had a LOT of fun with that show! And it made a lot of people smile, which was the intention.

This is what I do with action figure photos. Then if I'm feeling particularly creative, I will take the actual action figure, and put him (or her) in an altered form in a shadowbox. Then I create a three-dimensional world (like the shadowboxes "Forgiveness" and "St. Catherine the Astonishing"- see both in the bank of images to the right). And it is an intense process. Then when I need a break from making shadowboxes, I take photos.

And the cycle begins again.