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
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.
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!
