New Mixed Media Piece in Progress- The Circus Menagerie

A few weeks ago while wandering around Boulder I picked up this old book titled 'The Circus Menagerie'. I don't generally like to tear books up, but this one was already falling apart and I planned from the moment I saw it to turn it into an art piece.



Oops- I managed to chop up the title page before it occurred to me to get a photo of it. 1929. This is important because it explains why the animals are treated the way they are. This is long before PETA.



Circuses creep me out. They always have. The bones of my piece appear to be bright and sunny, but this is just the first layer.



Here's a test layout for the second layer. There are a lot more pictures in this book and it's hard to narrow them down. I really wanted to incorporate elephants too but they look like big gray blobs. There's one picture of fighting elephants but I can't tell if they're being harassed in order to fight, or if they're fighting on their own. I do love the picture of the monkey smoking the pipe.




I'm hoping to finish this piece in the next week or so. More pics to follow...