Her work and much more information can be viewed on beetleblossom.com
2021-09-23 Soller Valley By Shirley Roberts
Shirley Roberts
Katie McCann has a connection to Mallorca longer than to any other place she has lived in the world. It draws her back every year for longer and longer periods. Happy life in Berkeley California, notwithstanding, her Mum lives here and that almost says it all. Katie is a London girl and did her degree at the London College of Fashion.
She was a Fashion communicator before the word Blogger was even invented. The Freelance travel world of glossy magazines, writing and styling was her life before marriage, maternity and motherhood.
Katie was on holiday with her mother at the Es Port Hotel in the Puerto Soller when Mum met Tolo. Katie was 18 and embarking on her university life when Mum moved here, married and settled. From then on Mallorca was home because this is where Mum is. Travels and London life always brought her back every year and she loved the universality of the Soller Valley and the fashion influences of Palma.
Family life with Robin saw them settled in Brighton with their three sons. They loved the Brighton vibe and enjoyed their frequent visits to Mallorca. The boys even enrolled in the summer schools here because they spent so much time in their other Soller life with their half Mallorcan family.
Katie is an artist at heart and Brighton allowed developments in art journalism and painting. She was fascinated by work on Scrapbook art and the development of Collages. As the children grew Katie had more time to be experimental in the art forms which were entering her world. Brighton was a great location for all this creativity, but then it was all change.ADVERTISING
A job offer for Robin meant immediate family relocation to California. Goodbye to Brighton and all that, and new adventures beckoned. The San Francisco Bay Area and specifically the University city of Berkeley has been their home base ever since. Berkeley is a city in Northern California on the east side of San Francisco Bay.
Family life thrived USA style. The boys had a great experience in schools, sports and the wonderful experiences a university centre in the USA could provide. For Katie the experience of ‘Open Studio’ art introduced her to a whole new world. She took classes and time to evolve her artistic direction and today she is amongst the top 10 artists in her field of ‘Collage’.
‘Collage describes both the technique and the resulting work of art
in which pieces of paper, photographs, fabric and other ephemera are arranged and stuck down onto a supporting surface’. This is the definition of the process by the Tate Gallery.
Katie herself describes what she does like this:
‘With just a pair of scissors, I create intricate, hand cut collages which reflect my Victorian obsession with faeries, flora and fauna. From my large collection of books, prints and pages that are antique, forgotten and foxed with age, I cut out images, categorize them and then eventually piece them together like a complex paper jigsaw.
My collages are places where beauty is strange, creatures are curious and a sense of wonder prevails. The female face is central to much of my artwork and often acts as a reflection of the natural and sometimes magical world. She can be surrounded by birds, fish and butterflies or submerged in a dense wallpaper pattern which either represents her prison or her liberation.
I have recently found that my collages are becoming more orderly and methodical – neatly arranged, strange objects fill the page like rows of paper microscope slides or specimens in a tiny cabinet of curiosity. My need to obsessively cut can sometimes outweigh the composition of the piece, so I am often left with piles of abandoned cuttings – lost bones, moths, fungi, feathers, coral, shells and butterfly wings. Eventually these too will find a place to reside……’
Katie is now part of the Collage World with a huge following. Collage Art is loved and is an art form used in many cultures. She creates and sells her work to collectors and large organisations who commission her to do large defining pieces to grace their corporate walls. She makes small pieces which can currently be bought in Artesania in Soller. She has created public art work under the title ‘The Secret Garden’ for the City of Berkeley. She is currently part of the 100 day project in San Francisco exhibiting a daily piece on Instagram to wide acclaim.
Katie is a working artist and many of her pieces can already be found in homes in Mallorca.
Her work and much more information can be viewed on beetleblossom.com
Katie McCann is a Human of Majorca and hopes you enjoy her work.
