She was a sharp dressed man.

This work has sold.

Thanks for looking.

See you next year.

She was a sharp dressed man.

16 x 21.5 cm
Found black and white photographs, red thread, red pen

I have always been interested in women dressing as men. Pushing the boundaries of fashion not to mention women attempting to pass as men - historically there are so many examples. I was reminded of these thoughts a few nights ago when I watched "La Vie En Rose" - about the life of Edith Piaf. There is a scene in the early part of her life when she and her half sister Momone (Simone Berteaut), are hanging out at a cabaret and she (Momone) has a penciled-in mustache and is wearing a man's suit. The film reminded me that I have always thought it would have been so interesting to be in Paris in the 1920's and 1930's. So here she is - looking like a sharp dressed man.
(This title is dedicated to S.B.)

Numbers 1 & 3

These works have sold.

There will be a new post on Thursday, 27th December.

Number 2 : She couldn't make it.

This work has sold.

The Surprise = 3

1. It took over.




20 x 27 cm
Found black and white photo, (erased) graphite, dark grey and black thread, felt


2. She couldn't make it.



19 x 23.5 cm
Found black and white photo, watercolors, found (photo album) vellum, graphite.
Please note = Her head is cut out of the paper.


3. On holiday with strings attached.




13 x 24 cm
Found color photograph, graphite, acrylic, page out of a book on geography
Please note = If you were wondering - yes - this piece is crooked.
Also, as a small detail, the space between her thumb and her pointing finger is cut out.



//



3 might be my favorite number - but I wouldn't want to commit to that because there are so many other numbers out there.
I mean - 5 is not that bad either....
Maybe my affinity for 3 comes from my mom who says that things happen in 3's
both good and bad.

Then there is the aesthetic appreciation I have for the number.
It looks good.
The evolution of 3 could look like this:


Then there is my cousin who has 3 letters in her first name AND 3 letters in her last name.
(That is not why I like the number 3 but that idea that she has 3 and then 3 always sticks in my head).
Well, in honor of the holidays, I decided to make 3 works available today.

//

If you are interested in one of these works - please indicate the number.

Finally please note - I might not get back to you until tomorrow evening (San Francisco time) - so please be patient.

Her thoughts followed her.

This work has sold.

But next week ----- there is a surprise in store.

The next post will be 19 December (Wednesday at 9pm local Berlin time.).

'Til then - thanks for looking!

Her thoughts followed her.

Found photographs, graphite, origami paper and found paper
19 x 24.75 cm

I like the idea that words could follow us as a tangible thing that we could see.
(I hope that it is visible but there is a very small piece of red paper in the doggie - lady's mouth...)
This doggie - lady had a lot to say (as you can see).


//

A couple of things:

Remember when someone asked you how old you were when you were a little kid, and you would say 5 3/4 ? That's how I feel today. I am 38 1/2. Which means that today marks the exact half way point of this project! This is the 26th collage.

Some things you should know- next week I will be posting on Wednesday (19 December) evening (9pm) my time because I am going out of town very early on Thursday morning and won't be able to post at the usual time.
BUT stay tuned for next week - because a special surprise is in the works.

Waiting

Waiting has sold.

Thanks to all for the overwhelming response!!

Waiting

Found photographs, and graphite
8.2"6 x 11.26" or A4

A few weeks ago I went over to S.'s house and had dinner with her and her family. While there I was thumbing through a book of drawings of aquatic plant species from the 1800's. I was really amazed by some of the drawings. One in particular caught my attention. It was a spiral drawing that looked like a spider's web. Since I saw that drawing, I have been wanting to explore the shape of the spiral in a very fine pencil line. (Last week's collage also had some elements of that exploration.) This collage is a result of that exploration.

Up Above it all

has sold.
But thanks for looking!

Up Above it all

Found photo, found paper, found magazine clipping, orange thread, and graphite
23.5 x 32 cm or 9.5" x 11.5"

This work is larger than the scan bed and therefore it appears that it is a perfect piece of paper - but actually it is a very irregular piece of paper.

Growing up in California I spent endless hours on the freeway. It is fair to say that I have been interested in the organic shape of freeways for sometime. These very round and winding exits and entrances have always been exciting to me. I have always wished I could have a bird's eye view of the freeway systems. So I was quite happy when I recently stumbled across this freeway image which is positioned below the character. Living in Germany I don't get much opportunity to go on the Autobahn, but somehow when I do, it is always a very different experience.

Thanksgiving

This work has sold.

Thanksgiving

Found paper, found black & white photograph, graphite, watercolors, and origami paper
19 x 24 cm or 7.5" x 9.5"

Note about this piece:
All the (blue) area below the photograph, is cut out of the paper - I think it might be hard to see here. The purple piece of paper between the two characters is a darker purple in this scan than in real life.


Today is American Thanksgiving. One of the few days in America where the banks and post offices are both closed. Admittedly it is the only mainstream American holiday that my family celebrates- and it is one of two days during the year that we use our formal dining room. In the past, my mom would always dig up the paper cut - outs of turkeys (which used our traced hand print as the turkey body) that my sister and I made in grade school and decorate the table.
As much as I love being with my family on this day we always have to deal with our share of complex family dynamics. Nevertheless I will miss sharing our annual Thanksgiving meal together! Earlier today I was listening to NPR and on the program All Things Considered there was a report on a country Thanksgiving dinner. The narrator stated that Thanksgiving is "...the one time in the entire year where families do the same thing." There is something to be said about the unity of experience.

Happy Thanksgiving.

She is holding on tight.

This work has sold....(in record time).

She is holding on tight.

20 x 30 cm
Vintage paper, found black and white photographs, thread, wallpaper, water colors, spray paint

Notes:
The lady's head is not attached to the main piece of paper and there is an empty space for her face. The birds are loosely attached to the paper so they are lifted a bit from the page and finally the bottom 3 birds are not fully visible as the scanner bed was a slight bit too small.

I like to imagine that in just a moment
this prim and proper lady will be whisked away
into wild mayhem by the 8 birds that she is holding onto.

Various attempts.

Has been sold.

Various attempts.

22.5 x 32 x 2.5 cm (high!)
Felt, batting (in German: Bastelwatte), thread, graphite, ink-jet print, paint, and a clipping from a Polish Magazine (1973)
(The green paper actually goes down into a point. and the voice bubbles, and heads are cut out of the background.)

The topic for this collage is not one that just occured to me - but rather it is one that I consistently face - almost daily. The idea of communcation. When I first got to Germany I felt like I was underwater because I couldn't understand or say anything in German. I distinctly remember when the times started to change - I was in the S-Bahn on my way to work and reading a book (in English of course). I realized I couldn't concentrate on my book because there were a couple of young girls sitting behind me talking about some boys they liked in school. I just wanted them to be quiet until I suddenly realized they were speaking in German and I could understand what they were talking about. A small smile crept up on my lips and I closed my book - and just listened! That said - there are still many, many moments when my tongue is tied.
I just went to Istanbul on holiday, and there I was again - underwater. By now I feel a certain kinship to not understanding everything all the time. This work could be a result of my trip to Istanbul - and the certain level of consistent frustration I felt in not being able to communicate while there.

The Painted Lady

This work has been sold.

The Painted Lady

19.5 x 23cm
Found photos; both black & white and color, butterfly clipping (from the book: Schmetterlinge - Bunte Delphin Bücherei Nr. 2 - don't know the publishing date because I ripped out that page a while ago)



Even though there is only a small part of the black & white photo visable, it is a picture of San Francisco - one of the finds that I got from the Alemany Flea Market when I was there back at the end of July this summer.

Ever Present.

This work has been sold.

Ever Present.

(Detail - scan)
The colors are truer here in the detail than the overall view.


(Overall view - obviously not a scan - this work is too big to fit on a scan bed)

Found photos (both black & white and color), color copy, found book clipping (Butterfly), paint chips, and watercolor
26 x 32.5 cm


Awhile ago I was given the book "Jede Frau kann schoen sein."
(Every woman can be beautiful.) ©1962.



I have been fascinated by some of the imagery in the book. The first image in the book is of this fantastic woman that you see in the collage and the text under her image reads:
Wenn man jung ist, glaubt man nie alt werden zu koennen....Man muss nur die innere Kraft haben, jung bleiben zu wollen.
My translated version in English would be:
When one is young, one never believes one will become old....One just has to have inner strength to want to stay young.

Someone said to me recently that we all have an inner age that we feel we are that might not coincide with our said age.
That is something I have thought a lot about recently.

Round things go.

Has been sold.

Round things go.

Found photos - both black & white and color, origami paper and paint chips
19.5 x 19.5 cm

The space between the purple rays is cut out and the end of the stone walk way sticks out from the circle. The work is round!

I have had this purple clad lady amongst my photos for a while, continually trying to find a way to integrate her - and finally she made it.

Just landed. and Migration

These works have both sold.

Migration

Book cover (from Die Tierwelt der Erde - 1972), fashion magazine clipping (from the Polish magazine Zena Móda- 1973), yellow origami paper
22 x 24.5 cm

I took this picture last week while taking a boat trip on Wannsee in Potsdam near Berlin, and it inspired me to make this work:

Just landed.

Found black & white and color photos, paint chips, graphite and fragment of a dress pattern (from a Polish fashion magazine circa 1973)
25 x 17 cm (approximately)

About Just landed. :
I must admit that traveling has been one of the most important recurring events in my life. Some people had CD collections, others spent their time buying clothes... well, I spent my late teens - up to my late 20's, trying to collect stamps in my passport.
But since I have moved to Europe, traveling has taken on a different meaning and level of significance. It is just a lot easier to go places. Needlesstosay I have continued traveling as much as I can. Admittedly it has increasingly become taxing and exhausting. But, there is a certain thrill that I feel (which I think is aptly characterized in this woman's face) when I land somewhere new - or even somewhere I have been before.

Detail of the thrill:


Hopefully the cut out space behind the character is visible here. (You can see the dark shadow behind her head). She is holding a green circular paint chip in her left hand.

What a way to make a living.

This work has sold.

What a way to make a living.

Clipping from a Polish Magazine (1973), origami paper, artist tape, regular tape, part of a plastic book cover, color photo and colored pencil
19 x 28.5 cm

The part of the image where you see black is actually totally cut out. So there is a big open window behind her. Also the bottom of the 'pole' of the Beer Lunch sign (thanks K. for giving that to me) sticks off the edge of the paper by about 2.5cm.

About this piece:
I was talking to some people about the German economy the other day and they told me that the average wage for a waiter/waitress in Germany - and maybe that is even in Berlin - hasn't changed since the 1980's. Having worked in a restaurant myself for many years, I know what hard work it can be.

Radiating

This work has sold.

Radiating

Found photo, building cut out from Revista de Informacion Tecnica (Madrid, 1968), (found the magazine at the flea market in Madrid), other cut-outs from Die Tierwelt der Erde, paint chips, graphite
20.25 x 24.5 cm

A note about this work:
Last week I was talking with R. about how a person might have a different outlook on living depending on whether or not they grew up in a tall building with many apartments as opposed to a single family house. I know many studies have been done on this topic, but nevertheless I started pondering this idea a bit with this collage.

A detail is almost essential with this collage because you can get a better idea of the look on the character's face and you can also see that her bra strap has slipped off of her shoulder - a detail I quite like in this found image.

Lola

Lola has sold.

Lola is on her way.

Found photos, paint chip samples, and brown colored pencil
17.5 x 30cm

I finally found a way to use some of these micro-mini pictures I have of landscapes and waterways. As a result, this collage is fairly detailed in terms of the imagery and therefore I decided to upload a detail of the work in addition to the piece itself.
On another note, as per usual I seem to always have some scanning difficulties, and that is true this time around as well. There is more of the sailboat on the original part of the collage that I wasn't able to scan in properly.

As you can see, Lola is walking to the next city scape in her bathing suit.

Here is the detail of her walk:


(Detail)

She was backed into a corner.

This work has sold.

//


All works have been sold up until now.

A big thank you to all for your support, comments and positive feedback!!

She was backed into a corner.

Found photos, acrylic paint, graphite, paint chip samples
20 x 27.5 cm (approximately)

Idioms continue to play a big part of my every day. (I did a project on a series of idioms based on the word "Air" for Rojo magazine and Nike last year.) I am so conscious of how often I use them and the role they play in terms of culturally defining who I am.
Last weekend L. and I decided to goto Kassel to see Documenta 12. On the ride there we were brainstorming a bit about the word "back", and we came up with a huge list of idiomatic phrases.
This collage is based on one of them.

(This work has sold.)

She wanted them to be happy.

Found black and white photographs, acrylic, part of a page from the book "Trails West", architectural vellum, and graphite
20.5 x 25 cm (approximately)

A note about this piece:
I seem to be making things that are hard to scan and a bit delicate in terms of their color - it appears here that it is magenta but actually the architectural vellum is a light yellow. The part behind the woman is cut away (you can see the scanner bed) and she hangs over the edge a bit.

(This work has sold.)

They were everywhere.

Found black and white photograph, butterfly clippings, acrylic paint
22 x 30 cm (approximately - it might be a bit wider)

Again it is hard to get an idea here from the scan - but actually none of the butterfly wings (and none of the antennas of the butterflies are glued down on the paper) in the piece are actually cut off, and wherever you see the color blue, that is where the scan bed is, so this is actually a very "airy" piece - with a lot of cut out parts.

A bit about this piece:

I remember that when I was a kid my mom would take my sister and I to the garden and over grown grounds of a classical musical school near a beach called Butterfly Beach, in my hometown. That place was called The Music Academy of the West.



We wouldn't go there to hear music but we would go to see the Monarch Butterfly invasion/migration every spring...or was it in the fall...not sure. It was a magical and amazing thing. Each tree was covered with butterflies. There were so many that they couldn't spread open their wings!



They would land on us and flutter around in the trees. It only ever happened for a few days each year but we always managed to go. Needlesstosay, this work is loosely based on that moment.

(This work has sold.)

The California Trail

Book clipping from "Trails West", found black and white photos, pink string, text from the book "Jaws" (pg. 187 - 188), and graphite
6.75" x 9.5"
The text reads:
Her: What are you going to do?
Him: I'm not going to make believe nothing ever happened.

This piece took me a while to figure out.
I was totally intrigued by the tattoos on the guy. I have never seen a found photo with a person with tattoos before...I found both of these photos at the Alemany Flea Market in San Francisco a few weeks ago.

(This work has sold.)

Lounging Around

Found photos, paper detail from advertisement, and graphite.
6.25" (at smallest width - at the upper part of the image on the right)
to 7" x 10.50"

It might be a bit hard to get a sense of this work as the flower at the bottom part of the image is cut out. Again hard to document in this scan.
If you have questions about it please contact me and I can send you more detailed images.

(This work has sold.)

Looking West.

Found photos, graphite and book clipping (from "Trails West")
(approximately) 5.25" x 8.75"

(Because I am on California time, I am posting "later" than usual. I apologize to those who have been looking today.)

(This work has sold.)

He Wanted to Know.

Found photos (black & white and color), graphite and book clipping (from "Trails West")
6.75" x 9" (approximately 17 x 23 cm)

A note about this piece:
I just got to San Francisco last Thursday and spent Sunday afternoon going to the Alemany Flea Market. I was surprised at the diversity (in terms of the content) of photographs that I was able to find there. I have been used to European (almost immediately post war) scenes and scenarios. There is a definite change in the mood and flavor of the materials here. As a result, these next few works will be using those materials that I got from here.

(This work has sold.)

The Black Poodle Knew.

(approx.) 6" x 9" or about 15 x 22 cm
Found photographs, found paper scrap, black string, and graphite

(This work has sold.)

Early posting this week.

I am going out of town this Thursday (19 July)
and will be posting really early Thursday morning as a result.

Stay tuned.

Veronica Was Always Prettier.

Found photos, photo album paper, graphite, a piece of cake wrapping tissue from a bakery (La Colmena - Antiga Casa L'Abella, Placa de l'Angel, 12, Barcelona - great cakes...), found paper with a religious sermon written on it and yellow archival artist tape.
23.25 x 25.5 cm

Again, this work needs a little explanation:
There is a half an octagon entirely cut out of the paper above the woman's (on the far right) head. Not sure if that is clear from the scan. Also the scanner I used couldn't fit the entire work on the bed of the scanner; so what you see here is a little smaller than the actual piece. There is a little more on the bottom of the image (about 1.5cm more)...including a bit more yellow from the octagon.

(This work has sold.)

He Wanted to Expose Them. Sold!

Thanks again for your interests.

Next Thursday there will be another one...

also, check my flickr site for new collages:
www.flickr.com/photos/aprilvg

He Wanted to Expose Them.

Found photos, graphite, red paint chip, and red string.
20 x 28 cm
(As in last week's work, the (red) string is not attached to the paper, so it does dangle a bit.)

If you are interested in buying this work, please email me: a@aprilgertler.com

She had butterflies. - Sold!

Thanks to all who inquired about the work.
I will be posting the next work, next Thursday.

She had butterflies.

This work needs a little explanation; the work ends at the edge of the photograph but the butterflies hang freely from the photograph - meaning there isn't any white paper under the photograph as it might seem from this image.

Found photographs, acrylic paint, found paper and purple string
9.5 x 34.5 cm

38 Tears of Joy - Sold

The first work in this year long project '38' has been purchased!
But stay tuned for next Thursday's posting!

38 Tears of Joy

Found photos, Acrylic, Found photo sleeve from a photo album
18.5 x 27.5 cm

Welcome to 38.

In recognition of my 38th birthday, I will be posting a work for sale every Thursday for the sum of 38 Dollars or Euros.

I was born on June 14th. In America this date coincides with Flag Day, something which I was quite proud of as a kid.

For me, birthdays have become sort of bittersweet; the celebration of my personal new year and then of course realizing I am one year older. As I get older I am constantly taking stock of my standing in life; where my career is, my love life, my health and my financial standing. I never thought I would be where I am and doing what I am doing at this age.

This project is an attempt at checking in with my self, my work and considering these ideas in concert with my 38th year.

I'm looking forward to this year.