Canadian Mounty Monopoly

This monopoly board is part of a series of monopoly boards i played with (use the search function on my blog to find monopoly and you'll see some).

This particular piece uses monopoly money in the centre. 

It also features a photograph of two Canadian mounties in discussion. I took that photo in Vancouver in 2009 at an art exhibition at the Vancouver Public Library. 

I printed a heap of the Canadian Mounties on photographic paper as free passes for the first improv show I produced for Sydney Fringe in 2010, Pink Ladies.

That little elephant was given to me by a Sri Lankan exchange student who was one of the first boys I ever kissed. I think his name was Kris. or Krys. 

Yes, the dice are stuck on!

Gameboard and Monopoly houses

I went through a gameboard phase in 2011. I know it was 2011, because I asked my friend Ruth who shopped in thrift shops to look out for monopoly sets for me. I went to Chicago for their summer to study improv. When i was there i got occasional texts from her saying she'd found monopoly or scrabble boards, and I sent her money.

this gameboard from a Dracula board game i turned into a 3D map using the houses from the monopoly sets (see parts of them here and here) that she found for me. 

I used a handmade paper with bits of bamboo in it to cover over the gameboard, and I imagined little neighbourhoods based on the arterial roads created by the bamboo. I kept colours together because it was clearly what would happen. 

The houses differ in size (some of the monopoly sets were for little kids, the houses were quite large). I equated this with the mansions and the slums and the differing sizes in between.

Over time the houses have fallen off (i stuck them on with several different kinds of glues). And it was quite hard to store. So this has been assigned to the great recycle bin in the sky. The photos look great though!

And what I learnt from this piece I applied in my Newtown series in 2013.

Kimonopoly 2 and 3

While I was away in Chicago in 2011 my friend Ruth was combing St Vincent de Paul and its mates to find me old monopoly and scrabble boards. So began a whole series of pieces made on monopoly boards and with monopoly pieces (follow the link to see more of them). 

This was one of the first. I used patterns from a kimono pattern book 

I tried using repeating images like with the Canadian Mounties.
And this one, which is my husband's uncle Kevin. When Kevin died we found hundreds of passport photos Kevin had taken of himself. As a good artist's husband, James knew that I would be able to use them for something.
So I made a monopoly of Kevin's face. It's a little creepy. Community Chest is covered with a trave stone from Pisa. Chance has some lorikeets from a long weekend we spent in Killcare. The Stations and the corners are photographs of European chateaux, libraries and palaces. I also put a roofline all over the inside edge of the board, which I quite liked. Mostly used old photographs Nicola gave me for those ones.

This one below uses mostly American Gothic from the Institute of Art in Chicago brochure. And some wrapping paper that Linda gave me for a birthday or a Christmas one year.
I think this was where I first hit upon using the Kimono patterns.
So I made a series of geisha profiles with ephemera (gas bills, theatre tickets, car registration) and kimono patterns.

Most monopoly boards are square, but Ruth found me kid's monopoly sets, where the boards are smaller and rectangular. They have smaller denominations of money, and the houses and pieces are much largers. They worked for my purposes!

The Doorbells of Florence

Again this is a book provided by Nicola. It's called the Doorbells of Florence.

Photos of Florence doorbells accompanied by short fictional pieces about the people who live inside. The fiction wasn't good enough for either of us to want to read it again. 

The paper is beautiful, and the graphics and photographs inside the book are great.

When i was in Florence I took many photos similar to the ones which adorned this book, which is why Nicola bought it for me.

Now it's altered.

Again, I've taken advantage of the altered nature of the book and cut bits out, made peepholes and shapes, like in the other books I've altered.

Cointreau cook book

This is an altered Cointreau cookbook. 

Nothing of the original book remains. I even extended the cover (because the insides extended so nicely, i wanted to cover them. 

it gives the book an awkward shape, but it's worth it to protect the interior!

I love the idea of "throughness" - by cutting lace-like parts out of pictures it alters the other pictures through which you see them (and vice versa).
I did similar throughness with Cornell's birds book.

The cover is paper Linda Calgaro gave me as a gift.

The insides are photographs from magazines with rich royal colours