April 5-May: 30Reimagined Reality: Photographs by Amilia K Spicer
Photographer and singer/songwriter Amilia K Spicer made waves with her 2017 album “Wow & Flutter", and has continued releasing groundbreaking and soulful music based in American traditions. Her manipulated photography features vivid colors that creates an almost hallucinatory effect, and focus the viewer’s eye on the underlying forms of landscapes and everyday scenes.
On April 27 at 4 PM, Collage will host a performance by artist Amilia K Spicer at which she and her band will perform songs that have a relationship to her visual art. She will muse on the experience of portraying dream states in images, words, and music, which will give an insight to the creative process. For more information and to book tickets, see this LINK.
June-July 2025: Reframing the Frame - Photographs by Carolyn McDonald
“Reframing the Frame” is an exhibit of photographs by filmmaker/writer Carolyn McDonald featuring her mixed media handmade framing. Since an elementary school assignment of writing stories based on Life magazine photos, Carolyn embraced telling her own visual stories with every image she shoots. Using a variety of cameras, she excavates the motionless movement of inanimate objects, explores feeling tones of locales and reveals an array of emotions in human expression.
An invention born of necessity during the pandemic, Carolyn’s mixed media framing was inspired by the ornately carved wooden frames of Renaissance and Flemish paintings. She uses various textures & colors of yarns, glass beads, with oil pastels on canvas, or burlap on wood, that complement her photographs and enhance the narrative of an image’s composition. She creates color schemes that ‘raise the volume’ of B&W photographs and bring out lesser hues in color images. Hacking the conventional framing system of straight edges in wood or metal, her ‘reframed’ works offer thought-provoking stories and perspectives.
Nouns in the road
Nouns in the Road is the artist’s ongoing series featuring people, places and things in ‘her terrestrial quest’. From Irish landscapes & Southern California beaches to Manhattan skyscrapers and jovial smirks of relatives, “Nouns” captures a spectrum of engaging perspectives.
Time + Tide: As Revealed by Light
“Time + Tide: As Revealed by Light” is a collection of photographs of intricate glyphs etched
into the sand by trickling veins of sea water on a beach at low tide in the South Bay of Southern
California. Shot at various times of day, sunlight creates a rich spectrum of earth tones that
compliment and enchant any environment. Like snowflakes, each pattern in the multitude of
formation is unique unto itself. They will never replicate or appear the same again.
Imaginary Bands + their Fake Ass Songs
Also featured in the exhibition are several photographs from her “Imaginary Bands + their Fake
Ass Songs”. Aspiring to shoot album covers since she was a teenager, McDonald recently
designed a series of mock album covers of mythical artists, using photographs from her “Nouns
in the Road” and “Time + Tide” photo series. She is also developing a series of narrative stories
based on the fictional musicians.
