Book Review: The Art of Personal Imagery
January 30, 2008 by Cyndi Lavin
Filed under Home & Living
What’s Up Wednesday
The Art of Personal Imagery
by Corey Moortgat
Corey makes a strong request of her readers: please keep an open mind about using imagery that you’ll probably consider too personal and intimate. This request echoes what I read each month in the mixed media journals…”please, no more dunce hats and cute children with wings.” Although I’m not ready to give up wings, since that’s a particularly meaningful image to me, I share her dismay that so much artwork is churned out with a similar look. I’ve been guilty of it myself.
Instead, Corey wants us to dig into our stash of MODERN photos, and to dig even deeper into our own lives to come up with symbols and images that actually mean something beyond being cute. My favorite chapter in her book gives half a dozen ways that you can make a modern photo work in your mixed media piece rather than always reaching for vintage images. Nothing wrong with vintage images, but Corey wants us to move beyond them.
No one says, least of all the author, that no one should ever put a crown or a dunce hat on an image again, but her goal is to help us express our lives through our work. That won’t suit everyone, but for those who have longed to move in the direction of more personal, purposeful art work, I think you’ll enjoy her book.
Check out The Library for more mixed media art recommendations.
I’m so glad someone has said this! I’ve been wondering about the dunce hat thing for a long time! Why does everyone use them. What do they mean?
I had always supposed the reason people use vintage images is because they are not under copyright. I use modern images myself but I know that I am probably infringing copyright when I do so. Still I figure if Picasso et al could use fragments of newspapers of their time in their collages and no-one prosecuted them, what’s the difference?!
Great site, by the way, Cyndi. I always find something to stimulate me:-)
Thanks so much! You know, you’re always safe when you use your own source materials
I love the way you integrated your drawings in El Sentido de los Sueños…beautiful piece!
Hip, hip, hooray! I am sick of vintage photo after vintage photo. They have their place but it shouldn’t be EVERYWHERE. It’s almost like the modern world is too mundane or terrible to use it for art. Thank you for sharing this book. Perhaps people are afraid of copyright infringement. I know I am. Since I don’t have too many photos of my own it makes art somewhat limited in that regard but if I use what I have it has to be original. I look at these books for techniques rather than specific images.
I wish people would take a break from words too. I hate being told to “Dream”, “Smile” or whatever. If your image needs an explanation, try harder to make it visual, or make the words your title. Just my personal feeling that adding words is for the lazy artist.
Personally, I love using vintage images, but it’s the dunce hats and crowns that make me go ‘huh?’ I just don’t get that
I’m not sure I’d go quite that far about the words, Kathy, because I like using quotes and phrases in many of my pieces. Maybe I am being lazy, but I never really thought of it like that. However, certain one-word statements are certainly being overused, in my opinion. I’m personally getting tired of being told to “imagine” LOL!! I do quite *enough* of that, thank you
I’m with you, Cyndi. I like using words. With or without words we can be lazy in our work. Using words has a special meaning for me because I started using them as an exploration of my life as a native English speaker living in the Spanish-speaking world. In my last pieces I moved away from using words and did, as Kathy suggests, and just used them as prompts or titles for the pieces but now I’m beginning to miss them;-) BTW, thanks for visiting my blog, Cyndi:-)
You betcha! I really enjoyed seeing your photographs