19 Comments
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Amy Cowen's avatar

This is a beautiful exchange. I enjoyed seeing your collaboration from both directions! (Love your lead collage on the post, too.)

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Duane Toops's avatar

Thank you! It was such great process. Jason is really inspiring and terrific to work with.

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Brian Funke's avatar

Super cool!

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Duane Toops's avatar

Much appreciated!

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Jason McBride's avatar

Thanks!

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Gloria Horton-Young's avatar

What a dynamic duo! I subscribe to both of you and you fill my world with tantalizing poetry, prose, and dynamic art that always tells an intriguing story.

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Jason McBride's avatar

Duane makes it easy for me to want to great work!

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Duane Toops's avatar

Far too kind my friend! Knowing I was working with you made me strive to bring as much of my 'A' game as possible. 🙏

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Duane Toops's avatar

That’s incredibly generous! I’m so glad this resonates with you!

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Lisa Kahn Schnell's avatar

Great idea, and beautiful result! Kind of like a comic, where so much happens in the in-between spaces.

I also really love that opening collage! The colors, textures, depth…it all feels harmonious. And each time I look I find more hidden treasures!

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Duane Toops's avatar

Thanks so much! I've been enamored with Jason's work for a while. It was really great to work with him. He made the project so easy. Can't thank him enough.

I love that idea about comics and the spaces in-between! I've never thought of it like that! It's briliant. Comics are built of frames and windows, snapshots of moments , movements made into stills. The real art of it is alluding to a broader picture, a larger context, just out of view.

So glad you like the opening collage! It was a bit of an afterthought. Something I was experiemnting with that seemed to fit with the introduction. Sometimes I get lucky lol.

Thanks again!

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Lisa Kahn Schnell's avatar

I can't take credit for the comics comment/observation, but I'm glad you like it. I have really enjoyed the books about comics by Scott McCloud and Lynda Barry that I've read, and I think it probably came from one of those (more likely McCloud).

That collage was an afterthought? Looking forward to more of those.

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Jason McBride's avatar

That is definitely how McCloud views comics. McCloud and Lynda Barry were huge influences on my decision to get into making poetry comics and I especially love all of Lynda Barry’s non-fiction books.

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Duane Toops's avatar

Both authors are on my TBR list. I've been devoting an increasing amount of time to collage making this year, as a consequence my reading pace is taking a nose dive, hoping to read these at some point in the near future.

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Jason McBride's avatar

There’s never enough time is there? When get around to it, I think you’d especially enjoy Barry’s book, “What It Is”. The subtitle on the cover reads, “The formless thing which gives things form” and the whole book is very collage-y

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Duane Toops's avatar

...I may or may not have just ordered it...lol!

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Duane Toops's avatar

There really isn’t it. But, if somehow I was allotted extra time in the day to read, I’d probably end up sneaking in more collages, haha! You’ve sold me on “What It Is”! Sounds incredible. I may have to move that one to the top of the list! Thanks for the recommendation.

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May 16, 2024
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Jason McBride's avatar

Thanks, Bethel!

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Duane Toops's avatar

That’s so kind of you! Thank you so much! I really do appreciate it!

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