The oddly glowing and extravagantly bejeweled Blue Hippo of Luck and Love in Situ.

 

Imagine you are wandering on your own, contemplating your future when your reverie is interrupted by a huffling noise amid the nearby grasses. A grunting noise accompanied by that of squishing of muck and mire, green blades of grass moving to and fro. You explore further and come upon a clearing - a puddle of mud occupied by a single, blue hippopotamus.

This beast is not only of unusual color, but also covered in a pattern of sparkling jewels. He glitters in the sunlight, his eyes are shimmering sapphires. Typically, hippos are dangerous to humans, but this particular specimen is not. In fact, you have discovered a mystery, a good luck charm, an enchanted being with the power to distribute luck and love to those who find him by accident. For those who need a boost of luck, or a true love to arrive, you only need to find him.

Gaze upon him, then close your eyes and visualize that which will fulfill your heart's deepest wish. His power is yours for just a moment, as he will disappear as quickly as he arrived.

The Oddly Glowing and Extravagantly Bejeweled Blue Hippo of Luck and Love In Situ.

Sandhi Schimmel Gold's Blue Hippo

in si·tu

/in ˈsīto͞o,ˈsē-/

adverb & adjective

adverb: in situ; adjective: in situ; adverb: insitu

in its original place."mosaics and frescoes have been left in situ"

in position. "her guests were all in situ"

Copyright 2015 Sandhi Schimmel Gold - Schimmel Art. Made from upcycled/recycled/repurposed junk mail and other paper that would otherwise go to waste - on canvas - using only non-toxic materials. Covered with repurposed "jewels," rhinestones and sparkling lacquer.

 

What's in a Face?

Wolf whistles...Scorn...Desire...Adoration...a Mother's Love...Rejection...Swoons.
It starts with the face.

Babies are born looking like their fathers...  so they'll know the child is theirs and won't run off. Well, at least that's what I've heard, and it is certainly true of me and of my own daughter.

What is attractive? Repulsive? Beautiful? Sexy? Attraction is physical, "chemical," intuitive. We respond to what we like. So, most of us are stuck with what we're born with, other "enhance" with products and poisons and knives...to reach an ideal...and that target is always moving.

One man's meat is another man's poison
One man's meat is another man's person

My Mother told me...never trust someone with thin lips, or close-set eyes.

So, What's in a Face?

After all...aren't most of our face comprised of two eyes, two lips, one nose? Are not our faces merely skin stretched [or sagging] over muscle and bone? What's the big deal?

And yet... so much is made of our visual appearance. If you've read my blog, seen my art or know me, you know I have been exploring how our "looks" relate to our own self-image, and the messages we hear and tell ourselves. This collage was originally completed several years ago, soon after I dealt with a slight change to my own face [no one sees it, but it is glaring to me] which altered my impression of myself and others. 

Included in this composition are photos, textures, verbiage, people I know, and many others I don't.
Here are some details. I'm in there somewhere...and I don't look like Kate Moss.

"LUNA" a Pareidolic Portrait [what's Pareidolia?]

This is "Luna," a new mixed media portrait.

 Materials are: Junk Mail, Acrylic Paint, Glitter, Textured Glazes.

Pareidolia is the experience of “seeing” something in a stimulus or an object that’s simply vague and random. An example is the Shroud of Turin. Remember when you were a child lying on your back in the grass, watching the clouds go by and you saw a bunny or a castle in the sky, or the man [or woman] in the moon? Or the Madonna on a piece of toast, or a cluster of cactus? Maybe you've even heard messages when records are played in reverse [number nine? number nine?].

Carl Sagan believed that the ability to recognize faces from a distance or in poor visibility was an important survival technique. While this instinct enables humans to instantly judge whether an oncoming person is a friend or foe, Sagan noted that it could result in some misinterpretation of random images or patterns of light and shade as being faces.
Leonardo da Vinci wrote about pareidolia as an artistic device. "If you look at any walls spotted with various stains or with a mixture of different kinds of stones, if you are about to invent some scene you will be able to see in it a resemblance to various different landscapes adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys, and various groups of hills."

So often, people compare my work to those photo mosaics they've seen at Disneyland or in magazines... an image made up of thousands of photographs created in a computer.

Photo Mosaic at Disney

In fact, many people believe I use some sort of computer program to create my work. I'd like to say that no... I actually DRAW...PAINT...CUT...GLUE... using nothing more hi-tech than pencil, brush, scissors and sometimes and exacto knife.

So, I decided to tackle one of the most common Pareidolic images, the man in the moon... but I love women's faces better...

It's only a Paper Moon

I began by creating a monochromatic background and crescent moon in large squares - if you look closely, you'll see movie tickets [Knight & Day how apropo], greeting cards, advertisements, invitations, fly cards, postcards and photographs. Yes, I have a room full of paper. I save everything. I recycle everything. It took HOURS to cut and sort by tone all of those pieces! I reversed the progression on the moon.  It's only a Paper Moon!

Then the painting of Luna took shape... I kept to a somewhat monochromatic color scheme, only adding a bit of pink paper to the lips and greige shades for the hair.

Luna before the asteroids...

A Crater!

I was pretty happy when I got there, but never leaving well enough alone, I grabbed palette knives, brushes, glitter, gravel, textured gels and my own fingers to create peaks, valleys, craters and rocky textures.
This changed the perfectly flat "collage" into a textured moonscape. Now my woman in the moon looked like she was ON the moon!

This portrait, one of many in my collection of paper mosaic portraits is 30x40" on 1" museum wrapped canvas. Edges are painted black. Wired, ready to hang!

See more here: Schimmel Art Web Site

Try a Little Tenderness

For this portrait, I wanted to capture the vulnerability of a woman in love, the sweetness and femininity. Doesn't my subject look as if she were about to speak? 

Her hand, moving towards her lips...not sure what to say?

 She seems thoughtful and perhaps a bit sad. 

What she needs is assurance and some tender loving care. 

With props to Otis Redding:

Oh, she may be weary
Young girls they do get weary
Wearing that same old shaggy dress, 

But when she gets weary,
Try a little tenderness
You know she's waiting
Just anticipating
For things that she'll never, never, never, never possess,
But while she's there waiting, without them,
Try a little tenderness
It's not just sentimental, no,
She has her grief and care,
But the soft words, they are spoken so gentle,
It makes it easier, easier to bear
You won't regret it,
Some girls they don't forget it
Love is their only happiness,
But it's all so easy
All you gotta do is try, try a little tenderness
All you gotta do is, man, hold her where you want her
Squeeze her, don't tease her, never leave her
Get to her, try, try,
Just try a little tenderness
You got to know how to love her, man, you'll be surprised, man,
You've got to squeeze her, don't tease her, never leave her
You've got to hold her and rub her softly,
Try a little tenderness and watch her groove,
You've gotta to know what to do, man,
Take this advice...

 
Try a Little Tenderness

 

I used white paper with lavender and purple designs for the majority of the face, irridescent tissues for highlight, and my usual - junk mail paper source - for the rest.  

I hate to pick out frames. I always pick out the wrong ones, so I found a creative framer who can come up with interesting combinations of color and texture.

I trust my friend Mary

who put this unusual composition in a silver wood frame, and then in a seafoam textured frame.

It's amazing.

Here's my "gallery on the go" at an art festival in Virginia last year.