Junk to Journal: "Look Into the Southern Sky"

I really liked this accordion fold booklet that I received from Cleveland MOMA several years ago.  It's an invitation to a gallery show filled with extensive information about the show/artists.  (Yes - I'm a closet hoarder but I don't need an intervention just yet.  Well, maybe....)  I knew that one day I would use this invitation in my own artwork, and as it turns out, it was perfect for a "junk to journal" project.

When I began, the only thing I knew for certain was that I wanted to maintain some of the color on each page, and I also wanted to make sure that some of the words were still visible.  Other than that, I had no idea in what direction I was headed.  I loved the black/gray striped cover, and that gave me the idea to look through my portfolio of magazine pages.  I'm wild for color, but I'm also drawn to black & white (b/w)imagery so I had quite a few predominantly b/w images in my collection.  One such photo was that of a male.  It was a very moody photograph with very little contrast. The predominant feature was the large, black sunglasses.  I used that for the cover and decided to pull some of the red-orange color from one of the other pages.   I decided to paint over the features and also altered the hairline turning "him" into "her".   I came across the words "Look into the southern sky" and they just seemed to fit with the sunglasses and the feel of  the warm, sunny background.

Click on any image to enlarge

The next images that I came across were the skeleton heads.  There were actually 4 or 5 of them in one strip, but I tore them out individually.  I then came across the dog, the watch face, and the turquoise stone.   The stone reminded me of an art mannequin head right away.  I began playing with the images and it occurred to me that they looked like some kind of bizarre evolutionary timeline.  That's when the journal took on a "life of it's own".  It's a story of where we are now as a civilization and where, maybe, we're headed.  I hope you enjoy viewing the images.

Other notes of interest

I used this booklet upside down. The writing shows through the paint in places, but the font is small and can't easily be read upside down so it's not distracting.  I used tempera and acrylic paints and Mod Podge as an adhesive.  I also used a Sharpie extra fine black marker and a white gel pen.  No humans were harmed in the making of this art.