This morning I ran across the work of collage/mixed media artist Kim Jordan. She's in the Pacific Northwest, far south of me in Mt Hood, Oregon. The wiener caught my eye. My mom is a lifelong doxie-lover, and a litter of doxies paid the bill when I was born. Without the wieners, I might have spent my formative years folding laundry at St Agnes Hospital in Fresno.
Kim really nailed the eyes in this image, and it is a masterful portrayal of the pooch.
Then there is this fantastic Mr Fox:
I LOVE spotting foxes in the wild. At my old house we were visited by a fox family, once while there was a pair of mallards in the pool and a swarm of skunks on the deck. Boy, that was a chaotic situtation! I didn't want to scare away the foxes, but wouldn't have been able to deal with dead ducks. I didn't want to scare the ducks away, and was able to keep everyone safe by speaking in my "calm and collected David Attenborough science documentary voice." The foxes loved exploring everything on our deck. I have not had eyes on a fox in my yard here, although they do live in the area, along with otters, weasels, black bears, coons and coyotes. And the ubiquitous deer. My love for the family Cervidae knows no bounds:
Kim has an Etsy shop in which she sells her work. She says:
I’m an artist, a mama and a perpetual student of the school of life. Oh and I LOVE paper. So I tend to use a lot of magazines, junk mail and scrap paper as the medium for my mixed media collages. In high school I started using “junk” to make art because I didn’t have a budget for art supplies. I’ve continued with this medium because I like the challenge of using one image to create another. This technique is also a way to combine my love of art with my beliefs in resource conservation. I have always loved to create and art has tugged at my heart since I was very very little. I have been inspired and influenced by many amazing creatives, but none more so than the work of Mother Nature. The amazing patterns, systems, creatures, designs of the natural world are unparalleled in my mind. So when I reached college and needed to “choose a career path” I was torn. While I took many an art course (even got a minor in studio art), I ultimately chose the “responsible path” and pursued a career in the sciences as an ecologist. I have worked in this field for over 10 years, always continuing to create art on the side in one form or another. What I have learned about myself is that I need both – art and nature – preferably together, to feel whole. In 2003 I launched my art business - Found & Rewound - named to describe my medium of mixed media collage – turning found objects into artistic creations. When I became a mother, Found & Rewound took a new twist along with everything else. My perspective shifted in such a profound way – things that used to be important were now trivial and many things I had taken for granted became paramount. And I realized that Found & Rewound had new meaning too. I am finding myself all over again and “rewinding” – redefining what is true for me through my art with the new lens that motherhood provides. So what can you expect? Lots and lots of rich, messy, real mixed-media art inspired by the {extra}ordinary moments I’m harvesting daily. When I'm not in the studio, you can find me outside in the garden, on a hike or throwing rocks in the river with my hubby and our amazing little boy.
You can check out Kim's work in her Found and Rewound Etsy shop.