© KAREN E. SCHULZ 2022

Playing Tag
A suite of ten mixed media prints.
In this celebration of imagined music I am inviting you to "play tag" for yourself,
and discover what may be hidden in the gutter, the shadows or the stars.

October, 2022 update:
Playing Tag  is juried into the Manitoba Arts Network 's Touring Exhibition Program.
Click HERE for more info!
PLEASE CLICK ON THE IMAGES FOR MORE DESCRIPTION
Thank you to The Winnipeg Arts Council for their generous support.

One golden autumn day I looked skyward to the honking of south-bound Canada Geese.
Reminded of practising scales on the piano-with each bird a note-I envisioned a musical staff superimposed, or "tagged", over the iconic flying V formation.

Picture
ACAPELLA

Suddenly, musical notes and sounds seemed to be hiding everywhere.
I began to photograph such commonplace images as a scattering of leaves, footprints in snow, shadows of objects as Earth made its way around the sun.  

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BRIDGE
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TRIO
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SAMPLING CITY HALL

A notion to stencil symbols over the photos evolved into this suite of ten mixed media prints.
In assembling the work, I mimic the action of a Graffiti artist by stencilling my "tags" (musical staffs, clefs, sound effects) onto a barrier of acrylic panels through which the photographs are visible.

The exception is ORBIT SKRATCH which was created by the rotation of the planet (maybe)
and evokes the sounds a turntablist might make.

PictureORBIT SKRATCH







I enjoyed applying stickers to some of the surfaces; the sparkly green stickers on BAR give the illusion of broken glass and on LAST POST a wrecked piano sticker appears amongst the graveyard of notes.

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BAR
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LAST POST

For many years I watched, and listened to, a woman in the Exchange gathering pop cans.
She had a routine, a rhythm -drop can, squash can, drag can to back. Drop, squash, drag.
The titles, like 'POP', applied to the bottom borders reflect my fondness for puns.

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POP
Picture
JAM

JAM: Squealing tires caught my attention, I ran to the sound and then, sheepishly, took a couple of shots of the accident.
The witness phoning it in.
Shaken up man on sidewalk.
Son and mom-one of them the driver.
The know-it-all scoping out the vehicle's trajectory.

These works are displayed as flat against the wall as is possible, although Bridge (and maybe Bar and Refrain) are fun to present on the floor with a few dried leaves and pebbles (or cigarette butts) on their surfaces, playfully adding to the score.
People have walked on them thinking they are part of the floor which, really,  just makes me smile.

Picture
REFRAIN
Playing Tag originated with these, and similar, images printed out as inexpensive, expendable posters.

When my following submission to Winnipeg' great Send and Receive Festival of Sound was rejected---
'My proposal is to reunite a series of found sound images with their places of origin, using the buildings and alleyways of the Exchange District as the exhibition space. Over several months and season changes I have been collecting images of the Exchange and, by superimposing the musical staff onto them like a Graffiti tag, evoking playable and imagined found sound and music. As an homage to the ordinary, overlooked and mundane of a city's daily life with Graffiti as the beautifier, the posters will be modified by the the ordinary, daily occurrences of weather, traffic, and interaction. Ideally viewers may stop a moment to see what may be hidden in the gutter, the shadows and the skies.'
----I continued independently by reuniting these printed images with their places of origin; using the streets, buildings and alleyways of the Exchange District in Winnipeg as the exhibition space.
I photographed this layered timeline of modified images
which I then documented on a blog   http://playing-tag.blogspot.com/   borrowing the name Karen Eliot.
Side note:
I strongly object to the name Karen being used
to label entitled women displaying their shameful behavior.
And I DEMAND to speak to the persons responsible!!

© KAREN E. SCHULZ 2022