A DAY IN THE LIFE OF SETH APTER

The ball is rolling at THE ALTERED PAGE in preparation for Seth Apter's new book, The Pulse of Mixed Media.

We are into the 3rd day of ...........

...... and since I am one of the very fortunate contributors, Seth has written a post about me today, so hop over to the Altered Page, here and see what he has to say ..... but WAIT!!

Before you go, read about A Day in the Life of Seth Apter. We have all wondered how Seth squeezes so much into his day ..... so ......"the next voice you hear" will be Seth's ....


My weekdays vary greatly because my time is split between my two professions: artist and psychologist. I am self-employed in both cases and have had the luxury of being able to create (and modify) a schedule that really works for me.

Some days are fully spent in my private practice office, seeing clients from the morning through the evening. On those days, I do my best to find time to keep up with the part of my life as an artist that lives on the computer - checking and writing emails, responding to blog comments, and checking in on Facebook and twitter. After I return home on these types of days, I usually get to work on whatever art project I am involved with at the moment.

On other days, my time is shared between my studio and my office. They are both in the same neighborhood, so I am able to travel back and forth between my two work spaces very easily. When I am in my studio on days like these, I split my time between making art and working on the computer. I am the type of artist that is always working on many projects at once so the amount of studio time I have, determines what I will do. I might work on backgrounds, pull together some found objects to use in a piece, work in my visual journal, bind pages of a book, etc. I also spend a great deal of my time and energy on the computer. In fact, the longer I have been an artist the less time I seem to have to devote to art. Working on my blogs takes up a majority of my time on the computer, but there are so many other things I do there too: upload and organize my photographs, visit other blogs and websites, contact people about ongoing projects, email, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.

The view from Seth's studio window

My best days are those days that I can be in my studio from morning till night. I start each of those days on the computer and find I often lose myself there for hours. The rest of the time is spent making art.

Take a look at Seth's Etsy shop here.

Recently I have been working on two series of artwork - more than 20 pieces - for an exhibition. Up until the time I began to work on my book, I would also work on the many collaborations I have been involved with.

This year I have spent a lot of art time making samples for my upcoming workshops. Sometimes I just experiment and work on pieces of art that never make it to my blog. Right now, much of my studio time is being spent on promoting the book. There are also times when I leave the studio to do research. And by research I mean visiting the many galleries and museums that are in NYC. I always bring the creative inspiration I find back to my studio. And in between all of the "work", you might find me going for a run, hanging out in Central Park, meeting a friend for coffee or lunch, visiting a different neighborhood in NYC, spending time with family, etc. But mainly, I MAKE ART.

Central Park. Photo found here.

Dear Seth, thank you for finding the time in your busy day to answer my question. Most of all a BIG thank you for everything you do for our art community. You have a knack for bringing us all together at The Altered Page and then sharing your limelight in the articles you write as well as in THE BOOK we have all been waiting for.

The waiting is almost over ..... Can you believe it? Soon I will be turning the crisp pages of my new copy of The Pulse of Mixed Media. Available at Amazon and Kalahari in South Africa. All artworks and photos in this post are Seth's except for my self portrait piece for the book which you see below.

A sneak peek of my self portrait .......

Seth is offering a few copies of the book on his blog so leave a comment here to get your name in the draw.

SYNCHRONICITY, BIRDS AND HEALING

Every year Seth Apter organizes a "Treasure Hunt" for favourite blog posts. You can find links to other bloggers taking part in the treasure hunt, here. I have chosen Synchronicity, Birds and Healing for my Buried Treasure post. The bird sculptures in this post are all created by Geoffrey Gorman.

When my husband was gravely ill he spent many months in bed recovering from several surgeries and radical chemotherapy. To distract ourselves from the situation I decided to hang bird feeding platforms outside our bedroom window to see how many bird species we could attract to the garden. Every day I prepared a feast that soon became the talk of the town and within days every bird and his wife descended on our garden.

Once we had attracted the birds to the garden I purchased a nesting log made from palm stem. It wasn't completely hollowed out because apparently it is best to keep everything as natural as possible. Armed with wire and pliers I climbed into the tree closest to the bedroom window and fixed the log so that Martin would be able to see it directly from the bed.


Coming back through the kitchen door I called out that it may be a few weeks before the birds become used to the log. Almost immediately, Martin answered, "Come and have a look! ".

I have goosebumps thinking about it even now for there perched on the log were two Black Collared Barbets and while we watched with mouths agape they started pecking the soft pith out from the centre of the log.

It took several weeks for them to hollow it out to their liking but eventually the Barbets were satisfied and they began to build a nest inside the log. They were in that tree, building, nesting, feeding and rearing young for the rest of Martin's treatment.

Our visitors all congregated in the bedroom to watch, mesmerized as the little Barbet family went about their business. We are convinced that they played a very important part in my husband's healing. What are the odds that a family of shy birds will take up residence in a tree only minutes after putting up the nesting log? I have given palm logs as gifts over the years and most people report that no bird will go near it for the first month, if ever. We experienced many synchronicities during the two years that my husband was ill and this is definitely one we will never forget.

See more of Geoffrey Gorman's work here and his blog here.

FRAGMENTS, SCRAPS AND REMNANTS

Temple Codex Cloth, Part II by Mathew Harris. See Mathew's website here.

Mathew Harris was the first artist who came to mind for this post. His beautiful textile pieces have captivated me since I discovered his works-in-progress on Flickr.

Echo 3 by Mathew Harris. See website here.

I enjoyed this article by Michael Brennand-Wood.

"On my last visit to the studio we sat and talked about the latest suite of drawings and cloth works. At certain junctures, allusions would be made to specific references, images pinned to the walls of the studio. I listened as my eyes began to drift around the room, I felt as if I were in the pages of a giant sketchbook. I noticed photographs of crumpled aeroplane wings, chipped wall surfaces, Japanese Temples, old texts, scraps of cloth and paper, tiny experiments in cloth and pigment, skeins of thread, waxed papers bound by reels of linen. The walls and floor were stained, marked with the outline ghosts of previous pieces. Colour was everywhere, puttied whites, ochre reds, sepia, sooty blacks and fugitive slightly blurry marks. The quality of the colour is very specific, everything is ground, stained, dragged, it may look old, worn but all of the cloth and paper surfaces have been treated, worked into time and again until the fabric is a virtual map of the processes that shaped its existence. - Michael Brennand-Wood

Aoyama Notebook 4 by Mathew Harris. See website here.


Thinking about fragments, shards and offcuts of past artworks ....
rejuvenated.

Remnants and scraps which might have been discarded or pushed to the back of a drawer or to the bottom of the rag-bag or wood pile .....
re-invented as artworks.

A delicious thought!


Authentic Movement 2 by M.J. Cunningham. Leslie introduced me to M.J's work. See more here.

Lisa Jurist's layered work is amazing! See blog here and etsy shop here.

Seth Apter. See Seth's blog here and Etsy shop here.

People Say .... by Cheryl McClure. See more here.

Fragment 2 by Maximova. See more here.

Fragments by Christian Burchard. (Thin slices of warped, bleached and sandblasted madrone timber). See more here.

Takamaya Dai. See more here.

Mosaic by Rosalie Gascoigne. Fragments of decorated china, tins, timber, printed art reproductions on board. See here.

David Neale Jewellery. See website here and blog here.

Photograph by Yehan Wang. See website here.

SHADES OF RUST

Quintessence by Bill Gingles

I recently discovered Bill Gingles work. Many of his latest pieces are painted with a rich rusty palette. See more here.

Crescendo by Bill Gingles


"In the studio each painting is a starting over, a tacit recognition that after thirty plus years of painting I still don’t know how to make a painting (which is different from knowing how to paint). I just know that I can. Each time the task is to find a way to give myself to the painting so the magic can happen and the painting can stir to life.

Each new painting reveals its own tendencies and surprises as it comes to life. Rather like children from the same parents, they are each at once individuals and siblings. It is because the life they share with each other is the life they drew from me." -- Bill Gingles


Symphony in Red by Bill Gingles



Seventh Autumn by Bill Gingles

Has it always been this way or is it only in the last year or two that people have been going nuts over rusted metal in their art?



Rusty sculpture. Photo taken by Michael Pinto. See blog here.

I'm just as enamoured with paintings using a rusty palette as I am with rusted sculpture.

Absence of Black by David Maple . See more here
A painting I have loved ever since Mary Ann posted about it on her blog is Ancient Dashboard ..... though I get the feeling she doesn't love it as much as I do.

Ancient Dashboard by Mary Ann

Collage Painting by Fran Skiles

"I call these collage paintings, “skins”. They are rigid, yet flexible layered constructions of paper, cloth, paint, gesso, paint, ink and pencil held together with stitching, embroidery, and medium. My personal photography plays a part in the content and design of the work. I use photography to jump- start the collage, and many times the initial photography is destroyed in this layering process; only to reemerge later". -- Fran Skiles

See website here.

Trilogy by Seth Apter. Find more of Seth's work at The Altered Page, here.
Frontier V by Rosalie Gascoigne

Enduring Power by Linda Stilley. Website here.

X MARKS THE SPOT

Natural ochres on paper by Kitty Kantilla

X marks the exact location on maps where treasure is buried. The artworks in this post are all marked with X's so you shouldn't have any trouble locating the treasure :-)

Unfinished. Mixed Media piece by Seth Apter

Seth Apter is an artist, photographer and blog magician from New York City, who we in the blog world have quickly grown to love. Not only is he gracious and charming but he also has the knack for shepherding artists from all over the globe to his blog The Altered Page . Here he organizes exciting projects such as Secret Sunday...... but I digress.

Many of you know Seth's highly layered and textured mixed media pieces. "Unfinished" is one of my favourites. During an interview at Creative Therapy he describes his layering technique .

"After each layer, the still-wet paint was either distressed with sandpaper, wiped away with a rag, texturized with various materials, or dug into with a straight edge. I feel that building up the layers, perhaps to the point where the earliest layers may not even be visible, is the best way to achieve depth and richness in a piece."



Abstract by Jylian Gustlin





Semiotic. Oil and Mixed media on canvas by Ida Kohlmeyer


Yoruba Diviner's Panel at the Hamill Gallery



One of 7 beaded artworks (700mm x 700mm) commissioned for Singita Pamushana Game Lodge.

When Martine Jackson decided to commercialise her beaded artworks she founded MJ Visual, a design company consisting of up to 6o beaders from the townships of Cape Town, South Africa.

" MJ.VISUAL is a result of Jackson’s passion for combining traditional African beadwork with contemporary graphic design as well as creating a platform for less privileged women to reveal their amazing artistic skills. "

Detail of a piece called Rust Moon by Velma Bolyard. Layers of handmade daylily paper, linen, hosta and shifu.

White Rock with Ochre Cross by Susanne Carmack

A Letter to Phil about Dolphins by Allen Maddox. See more here and here.

Piazza. Mixed media by Lennox Dunbar

Felt piece in progress by Fiona Rainford