I do not even aspire to “mild-mannered” so my controlling side has a well deserved reputation. One friend even found it interesting that it was a “power” cord that delivered me to my recent state of NO control whatsoever. That power cord was even dramatically ripped from the wall in said incident. Very symbolic, don’t you think?

Starting with a hospital stay - the mother of all out of control experiences - knowing that my sister, She Who Throws Away Everything, was “cleaning” my house, and my husband, He Who Wants the Garage Emptied, was “getting things organized” for my return, I was forced to give up and let go. What would be would be.

He was in his glory, of course, finally in control of his environment for a change, taking care of everything that had to be done - in his way.

And you know, he did a great job. He even found out he enjoyed certain of “my” former chores and is continuing to do them without even “my” advice. At this point, I actually could follow him around and nag again, if I wanted to. But, I don’t.

I found out everything does not have to be done my way - and what a relief to let go of trying to run everything!

Men can do good work around the house - if we can just let go and let them.

There was just one clerk on duty and low and behold, it was the one who had been arrested! I wondered if he would be embarassed because I had been a very obvious witness, and he is a soft spoken, nice man who has worked for the PO for a long time, so I didn’t want to make him feel badly.

I acted as if nothing had happened and so did he. Business as usual. It just goes to further the point that the world keeps on turning with hardly a blip, no matter how dramatic the drama.

I began collecting vintage portraits twenty some years ago, when the dawn of digital restoration and retouching coincided with my mother’s marriage to the best portrait photographer in town. I got interested in the history of his craft and in restoring the beauty of some of these old photos.

When I first launched the Art Safe a year or so ago, including parts of my portrait collection was a logical idea because of the popularity of vintage photos in the paper arts field.

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it because I couldn’t bear to see their heads cut off! Or see them in dunce caps or sprouting wings. I have spent so many hours at pore level with these folks that I think of them as friends, you see.

Any trend that is overdone gets old, and the vintage heads in hats etc. has been really, really overdone. But does that mean we can’t use our creativity to incorporate these wonderful images in new ways?

I recently issued a challenge to the members of the New Idea Exchange Yahoo Group to create new and different approaches using a vintage portrait as a starting point. The rules are: no crowns, dunce caps, wings, or decapitation. I will publish the results in a New Vintage Art section of my newsletter which goes to 6000+ paper artists. This challenge is extended to all of you as well.

With renewed hope that we can change the status quo at least a little, I have decided to release some of my collection on CD (see Announcements below). They are large and beautiful images which will lend themselves easily to new techniques.

This little girl is a particular favorite of mine. Her portrait was so severely damaged by mildew spots that it was impossible to restore the original flawless face without losing that wonderful haunting expression in her eyes.

Luckily, there are effects that can mask that kind of damage - like adding Film Grain in PhotoShop which is what I did.

So, how to showcase this young lady, or at least her essence in a new way?

I decided to focus on the look in her eyes and combine her photo with some quotation that might express her mood.

I also wanted to move as far off the grid as possible - to do something really different just to get things going.

It is edgy, design-y, and has a modern look which contrasts nicely with the vintage colors and image.

I enlarged the image and cropped the close-up. After increasing the Contrast in PhotoShop, I applied three Filters in succession: Dry Brush, Cut Out, and Rough Pastels. The result is a painted canvas effect which can be seen in the detail below. (This Special Effects image is included on the CD).

I used colors from the photo to add the borders with the Crop Tool trick learned in Virtual Stamping 101 - applying the borders to only the top and left of the image.

The quote from Nietzsche expresses her mood perfectly, I think.

As you can see in close-up, the photo now looks like a paint-by-number canvas, and I am very tempted to use it as a guide for a painting on canvas.

So, the point is, by thinking outside the box, we can take the same materials and make art that is not the same old, same old. My piece may be stretching it further than you want to go, but there is plenty of room in between

I have already seen work by a couple of other challenge-responders which is really exciting! You will be seeing it soon.

This is not like the CDs full of badly scanned antique store cabinet cards. Every portrait has been lovingly retouched and restored to large, high resolution TIFF files (some take up a whole letter size page) which are ready for any technique. There are 10 original portraits and 8 Special Effects files in which we have adapted some of the portraits for collage and/or compositing.

Collections of Women and Men will be released in the near future.