I have been collecting fridge magnets from electricians, plumbers and tradies for a while now. Nicola got in on the act for me too – she gets more than i do, who knows why.
Years ago I covered a series of them in maps, and they were great but eventually the glue came off and they have gone the way of the fridge magnet retirement path, wherever that is.
This time I covered them in gesso. My original plan was to do a fridge-magnet-Mondrian, but i was unable to get the paint to stick in a smooth enough manner.
but seeing them all the same colour I was inspired to go square, which was reasonably easy. Then colour.
I had bought a truckload of fabulous secondary and tertiary colours at officeworks when I was doing the Harbour Series, so that’s what i used here, straight out of the tube. I did 2 coats, but it was rough, and then of course the magnets were bumped and bits came off, revealing the writing underneath.
So that’s what my art is – serendipity. I took a plastic fork and while the paint was still a little sticky I scratched bits back. That’s what you see here.
Next time I do this (because these things are always coming into my orbit):
- sandpaper first?
- more up to date gesso? this one was old and took more than a day to dry
- one sized square
- maybe just one colour
I am proud of myself though, because I discarded all the offcuts – there were many, and the mondrian idea from the left overs was a thought that I always discarded. I have so much collage making stuff, I really don’t need to engage with discards any more.
And because people have been asking, i don’t need a fridge magnet, I already have a tradie for every job in my house, and i wouldn’t use a fridge magnet anyway, because I’d ask my friends who they recommend before I’d take a magnet from a letter box drop. I wrote an entire book about it!
