Please Welcome New Member, Jono Tosch

Hi Scrapteria People

My name is Jono. I wrote a cheesy, windy introduction and deleted it. Here is my less cheesy, less windy introduction:


I started collage in 1999, in college. I started with John Heartfield. Most of my work was very “simple” like the collage above. I would cut out an image that struck me, hold that image (here the cheese) and then flip through magazines for a background to paste it onto.

Eventually I started branching out and paying attention to other collage artists (with other techniques), and collage became something bigger and more various and more interesting to me. But that’s not to say that I don’t like these pieces, it’s only that I wanted more challenge. I started looking at Romare Bearden, and he was doing something quite different from Heartfield and Hannah Hoch. Or rather, Bearden was drawing the wack-o composite faces from Hannah Hoch, and adding something of his own, too. Basically, eventually I wanted to make collage that was not politically or social-commentary motivated, and just make collage for the eye. I kept and still keep many painter friends (mostly abstract painters), and I wanted to use papers as if they were pigments instead of collaged images, such as Alberto Burri did with burlap and tar etc, and so I added that to my bag of collage tools.

Anyway, like Hannah Hoch and her ethnographic notebook studies, I currently use National Geographic as my main source material, and so my work ends up having a certain amount of “third world” imagery and, of course, that pre-weathered, instant-vintage look due to the photo quality of the source material. I could use contemporary magazines, but I like the colors of old National Geographic. I especially love the old televisions and cameras and cars. I am always tempted to include old station wagons and hamburgers.

All in all, I have been doing collage for over a decade, on and off, and I am constantly adding new techniques to my bag. Just last year I learned about the wonders of spray adhesive, and I am about to make some big collages really soon on empty, 50 lb sacks of flour. Basically, I really enjoy collage because I am constantly learning new ways to go about it.

Jono

p.s.

I am actually a poet at the beginning of his publishing career. I am also a composition teacher and a food writer. I make lots of pickles from scratch (sauerkraut, kimchi, pickled this and that, and, of course, various cucumber pickles) and I am an avid gardener. I made a zine called Idiot Hero for the better part of my twenties. My shoe size is 10; my waist is 29 or 30; I am a hair under six feet, brown hair, brown eyes; I am a Libra; I drink Scotch and India Pale Ale; I have one brother and one sister; I live in Massachusetts with my friend, Francesca Chabrier, poet. There is currently a Chihuhua named Tille sleeping on my bed. She is not my dog. I am not sure what my blood type is. I am 32 years old. I have health insurance for the first time in my adult life. Tomorrow is Thursday. I hope it is sunny. I am growing pumpkins in my garden.