Ken Weichel

Ken Weichel
Benicia, California, USA

STATEMENT

My work with collage is an attempt to combine conscious images, shapes, colors with an unconscious design capturing a moment of time–a point of view.

A collage corresponds with a significant inner reality–one that resonates through the inner world, awakening connections–those inner connections between the image and the shudder of recognition it evokes. An individual’s connections differ widely, so for many, a collage reassembles a puzzle, but to others, it is a familiar way of seeing this world we live in.

Viewers must let themself flow from image to image, spending time to notice the details–not an exhaustive study, but a brief examination so as not to impede the movement of the eye and the mind’s eye. As the images circulate and combine with each other in different ways, they initiate the process of imaginative play. There is an engagement: a journey of discovery in which one tries this and that to see where it leads; following each image like it was a boulevard with its own qualities to experience. Further down the boulevard one comes to an intersection of another image/boulevard now one can decide to follow this new path or continue on the current one. A transit of the images and their connections brings the viewer back to the beginning; to follow another path.

BIO

Kenneth Weichel received a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degree from San Francisco State University as well as earning a teaching credential. While attending San Francisco State College in 1968 he studied Creative Writing and World Literature with Nanos Valaoritis and participated in the student strikes. He subsequently completed the Library Technician Program at San Francisco City College and completed Core Bindery techniques at the San Francisco Center for the Book.

In 1976, he started Androgyne Books, a small independent press and worked in the book arts for more than 50 years . From 1976 to 1988, he edited and published ten issues of a literary journal, Androgyne. Since then Androgyne Books published 15 authors’ books of poetry, fiction, translations, and essays. The press organized book fairs and readings at various venues, assisted in collage and art shows, conferences and other events.

Kenneth’s poetry, prose and collages appeared in Paper Pudding, Interstate, Ins & Outs, Soup, Invisible City and other small magazines and journals both in print and online. He published two books of short fiction, and two books of poetry. Horse Drawn, a study of horses inspired by Muybridge’s photographs, is a poem/collage of limited production. The art of the book continues to be an interest and a passion that excites his imagination and creativity.

Kenneth Weichel currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

ARTIST CONTACT

[click to email]
androgynebooks.org

IMAGES