Jill Gewirtz: Photomontage & Collage
May 20th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
I met Jill Gewirtz a couple of years ago in one of those typical yet random New York City ways. At work one day I mentioned some apartments I had seen to a colleague. The location and description of the building sounded similar to one that a close friend of hers, Jill, had also viewed. My colleague emailed Jill and after comparing addresses we confirmed that Jill and I had viewed the same apartments. In fact, we had looked at the available apartments on the same day, possibly even passing each other on the street. Jill took one of the apartments, and I the other, several months later.
Through this coincidence of having a mutual friend and now being neighbors, we made a point of meeting. Over a glass of wine I discovered that Jill is a native New Yorker, song writer, visual artist, and photographer. Drawn to alternative photography since the 90’s, Jill finds there is a thrill in taking photos and capturing moments in time. She has always enjoyed taking pictures of multiples, like an array of clocks or handbags, as well as vintage clothes or objects; she has an appreciation for items from the past that have been disposed of. I also learned of her penchant for collage-art and that she was interested in learning some basics. I offered to show Jill the tools and techniques I had acquired over the years and a collage-obsessed (and mutual pet-sitting) friendship developed.
Since that initial meeting, Jill and I have had many collage-art dates. We give each other feedback on new pieces, compare practices, and spend a lot of time griping about the grueling process of image transfers. While lounging around my apartment one day, foregoing the transfer obsession for a gab session, I bombarded Jill with some questions that had been on my mind for this fellow collage artist.
Me: With a background in photography, what drew you to collage?
JG: I got started in collage after seeing Dadaist works, they resonated for me. Surrealism is my favorite art movement and I was drawn to seemingly unrelated images coming together to make a whole. Also, one of my favorite artists is Rauschenberg. I’m in awe of his earlier to mid-career work. I especially love collage because I can integrate my own photographs and work on themes. I’ve admired collage all my life, but didn’t have the skills to make them look cohesive and artistic. I took a class at the Artist’s League a few years ago but was put off by the simplistic exercises and teacher, who was often unavailable. I progressed a bit with my skills when you and I started working side by side on collages. I loved that yours told stories. Getting started in collage began later in my life, but I was attracted to them for as long as I can remember. The great thing about art is that no matter what your age, it’s something you can start or continue to do throughout your lifetime.
Me: Where do your ideas for the collages originate? Do they develop as you work, or do you know what you want to do before starting a piece?
JG: With my first collages I started experimenting with Xerox transfers (combining whole images). I chose my own photo images that I’d taken over the years and placed them as diptychs and triptychs (two or three images side by side). I would select one image that I wanted in the piece and then peruse more photos, selecting the second image based on loose themes that came to me as I went along. There have been times when I’ve put images together that just didn’t work. I find it’s the simpler ones that usually come together for me. With collages I made several months ago, I’d found this great Life magazine from the 1950′s featuring women’s changing roles. I went through the magazine and picked ads, phrases or titles that seemed ironic or oddly related and started to string sort of a narrative together. Then I selected photos of my own that would integrate or contrast with those themes. 
Like the model, that I’ve used in several photos, Patti Rothberg, is a rock musician who playfully enjoys assuming the role of housewife, glamour girl, and the like. There’s a whole bunch of feminist themed pieces that developed in this work, although I didn’t intend it to. I think working with images and text from the 1950’s just sort of forces you into comparing the way women were seen in the 50’s vs. today. Certain things considered racy then are nothing in contrast to our current, highly-sexualized culture.
Me: What is your favorite aspect of collage?
JG: I’d say it’s creating a gestalt out of seemingly related or unrelated images. I also like using text since it can tie the photos together. I think another favorite part is when the transfers I painstakingly make actually transfer successfully. With inkjet transfers, it’s anyone’s game until you do it enough times. This process involves printing photographs on transparency film and then, with a gel medium, transferring the image onto wood or watercolor paper. (I tend to find out about a process and experiment with it until I achieve some sort of consistent skill.) It worked that way with Polaroid transfers, then the Xerox transfers, and now the inkjet transparencies. So much of art incorporates new technology, but inkjet transfers are quite labor intensive. They speak to the use of manual techniques in art forms from an earlier time, and no two come out the same. Other aspects of collage that I love are pairing those old Life ads with original images 
suggesting the historical with the contemporary, showing how icons are transformed into a commodity, and incorporating former technology that has become obsolete.
Me: The smell and texture of the gel/glue is particularly enticing as well, no?
JG: Ha, yeah, that too.
Me: Has practicing collage affected your photography in any way?
JG: Well, I’ve always taken certain kinds of pictures, like the multiples and vintage items I mentioned, but I think it does sort of change your perspective, making it richer. Collage compels you to look at things in a more holistic or offbeat way. The clock or purse is not just a straight image anymore. It’s now a small part of a larger whole. You start to think a lot more abstractly when doing collage, so in some ways my perspective in taking photos has developed conceptually.
Me: When taking photos now, do you find yourself looking for things to incorporate in a collage?
JG: Sometimes, like there are certain statues in NY that are beautiful to me, especially in Central Park. There are a few Goddess-like statues that I’m attracted to, so I did specifically take photos of those for collage. At the time, I didn’t know exactly how I wanted integrate those images into a collage, I just knew I wanted to use them. I also get inspired now when I see combinations of things in real life.
Me: What keeps you motivated to do art?
JG: In visual art I always seem to push myself to try new techniques. I keep obsessively reworking things till I get it right, or close at least. I feel creative things are exciting and self expression is very gratifying. What’s motivating is covering new ground artistically and evolving. What was interesting to me 20 years ago is very different from now, but the process of creativity is a constant and fulfilling. 20 years ago I was printing black and white photos in a darkroom, today I’m doing alternative photography, not based in a darkroom. Images are very compelling. You look at them over and over again and they become part of your own personal history. What’s also motivating is to be happy with what you’ve made, feeling you’ve defined something in the world that is uniquely yours.
Me: So what’s next… what are you working on now?
JG: Recently I’ve been doing more philosophical or conceptual pieces. I think for me, the themes evolve more than anything else. The next piece I want to do is something with a clock and the concept of time.
Me: Dripping clocks? Ha ha.
JG: Ha, no… no dripping clocks for me.
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Howard John Arey’s Daily Commute
December 5th, 2011 § 2 Comments
When I first had the idea to start ArtAttackNYC, I knew instantly I wanted Howard Arey and his artwork to be my first post. I’ve known Howard for, well, let’s just say a long time now. When I was a newbie to New York, I befriended his wife (though she wasn’t his wife at the time), and the three of us bonded quickly. I would describe Howard as a modern day, old-fashioned kind of guy with a wide array of passions. I was first introduced to Howard’s talent for drawing through his comic book art but one day, most likely over drinks and a good science-fiction conversation, I got a glimpse of his sketchbook filled with portraits he had taken to drawing on his daily commute. Immediately I was struck by Howard’s ability to capture a character’s essence so clearly and consistently. As I turned the pages, I found each portrait just as engaging as the previous. Continuing to thumb through the sketchbook, I began noticing the lines and detail. These drawings of fellow commuters started to come alive before my eyes. We pass thousands of unnamed faces every day, never giving them a second thought. It was affecting to have the ability to look at these portraits, really look at them, anonymously from Howard’s point of view. He doesn’t just draw a portrait with pen on paper; he creates an atmosphere and tells a story.
Confirmation that my instinct to ask Howard to partake in this endeavor was a sound one came the day he showed up at my door carrying two Duane Reade shoppers filled to the brim with sketchbooks. We sat for a while chatting, perusing, and choosing the sampling you see here, which barely scratches the surface of the artwork in his commuting cache. Howard John Arey may travel within an art world of his own, but that world never lacks in its inspirational offerings.
Me: How long have you been drawing during your commutes and why portraits?
HJ:I started them a few years ago, mainly because it’s that commuting time I can count on to focus on drawing. Morning and evening combined, the commute is about two hours — less than I’d like to spend each day drawing, but plenty better than nothing. My original motive was that my skills shouldn’t atrophy, that I not go days on end without setting pen to paper. So the subject matter is, to some extent, determined by circumstance; like if I lived in a fishbowl… I’d have lots and lots of drawings of little plastic castles.
I share the consensus view that people are more interesting-looking and appropriate subjects of art than plastic castles, especially so on public transportation. That’s where people tend to sit relatively still, almost like models in life drawing classes but not as often naked. Fidgeting is a scourge invented by the devil to vex me, specifically; digital devices are a godsend. People stare at them enrapt, and I can watch and draw a person for ten minutes without them moving more than a thumb.
Me: What motivates you to keep drawing and not succumb to those digital devices yourself?
HJ: My motivation for this activity is a lot like when I went to the dentist last year and she told me if I didn’t take better care of my teeth, they’d start falling out. I started flossing and started using Listerine the minute I got home. I’ve barely stopped since and now I get good marks from the dental authorities. Similarly, when I realized I wasn’t finding any time to work (art-wise), and vividly pictured myself bitter and regretful at the end of my life, my talents wasted, all that sad stuff, I started drawing furiously… on the bus, on the PATH train, the subway. And when I don’t — when I neglect it — I feel like a complete dirtbag, just like when I don’t floss. Besides, if you do something every day for enough time, it’s hard not to get better at it. Also, if you live a life of burden and responsibility, as I do (cue violins), these modest successes can be sustaining. The time spent drawing is frequently a high point of my day . . . by which I mean, the drawing is really, really fun. (Not that the time spent otherwise is unfailingly crummy, so enough with the violins!)
Me:You mention the distraction of digital devices being a godsend for you but there must be some who take notice and, if they do, are they generally receptive? Indifferent? Or… other?
HJ: This being New York and New Jersey, loci of the easily-excitable and wary-unto-paranoia, you’d think this habit would have led to numerous interactions with my fellow commuters, not all of them pleasant, but au contraire. I’m so typically ignored by my “subjects” that it’s quite frankly insulting. Exceptions include: the guy at Union Street, who took the train’s extended, open-doored wait at the station to rat me out to the rest of the people in the car. Standing in the doorway, he, who may have thought I was from the government, yelled, “Hey! Everybody! This guy’s drawing you! Look out! Yeah! This asshole!”[gestures toward yours truly].
More happily, there was a guy just a couple weeks ago who came up to me at the PATH platform at Journal Square and said, “Hi, I see you out here many times, drawing people . . . you do these drawings so fast, very accurate (it pains me to sound boastful, but I’m quoting)… maybe sometime you do a drawing for me, hm?”And I was like, oh, thank you very much, kind of you to say, and I murmured something like, yeah, sure, I just might, while, shy as I am, I was trying to engineer a good slinking-away. But he wouldn’t have it and kept suggesting that I should draw him. When the train arrived, after a minute or so of this, he said, “okay, we’ll do it on the train.” Yes, sir! (ulp) So I ended up drawing him for the eight-minute ride, me sketching furiously and him standing rigorously still.
Thankfully the drawing came out pretty well. I showed it to him, and gave it to him, and he was impressed and pleased. And the morning after next, I see him again on the platform, and he shows me his iDevice, with a scan my drawing of him on it. He tells me he scanned it and put it on his Facebook page just that morning, and already three of his friends had “liked” it. I have to admit, that made me feel pretty good. And since then, every morning I’ve been asking him, “how many of your friends like it now, how many now??,” and now he avoids me. So, you don’t have to actually slink away to eventually be left alone. I kid.
Me: Do you have any ideas what the future holds for your art?
HJ: Well, you might remember that a number of years ago I was doing comic strips on a . . . sort of regular basis? Not many per year, to be honest, but there was a steady yet absurdly slow drumbeat of my comics going out into the world. (It would probably surprise a lot of people in the comics community to know that I haven’t given up on that as one of my life’s major pursuits.)
This sketchbook drawing has been helping with that — as in, when I practice strip writing and drawing, secretly, in my other sketchbooks, I see that I’m getting a boost from the drafting practice the commute drawing provides. These commute sketches are done quickly and without drafts or correction, ever-so-gradually instilling in me habits of working more confidently and with some quickness of wit and boldness… all qualities that are far from indigenous to my Nation of One. So that’s what I’d like to do/take another run at, narrative comic strips.A couple years of this drawing-from-observation has me feeling pretty good about my drafting and illustrating; now I want to see if I’ve got any stories in me. Oh, but, make no mistake, I’m also always up for illustration work. Ahem!
Here’s a small glimpse into Howard’s multitude of sketchbooks – reflections of the artistic landscape that is his daily commute.
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