Shrine in a Box

Collage and mixed-media works have my heart (and eye) at the moment. Maybe it’s Spring fever? I just love the spontaneity, the serendipity, the sense of delighted discovery that comes with looking at a well-conceived collage, no matter how often you view it…

Here, mixed-media artist and photographer Jen Kinton-Bailey has put a tiny whimsical collage inside an altoid tin — and I immediately thought of those little hillside shrines that one used to come across here and there in rural Italy and Greece, right out in the middle of nowhere.

Almost magical…

I’m also reminded of a miniature nacimiento that I saw in a Mexican market and foolishly failed to buy — primitive in style but so full of life! The 2-dimensional creche figures, cut from tin and coloured with brilliant inks, were bedded down on dried moss in a handmade box.

Want to make your own mixed-media art in an box? ARTchix studios has posted Jen’s free step-by-step tutorial for creating this “Altered Tin” — or, as I choose to call it, the “Shrine in a Box”!

By the way, Jen Kinton-Bailey’s artwork will be featured in the 2007 release of Allyson Bright’s The Idiots Guide to Altered Art. Meanwhile, you can track down more of her collage art at artblendsbyjen.etsy.com.