On the Cover

Modern Machine Shop covers often feature real shops, machines and people in their everyday settings. These realistic and sometimes gritty images are the essence of Modern Machine Shop and our mission: to bring manufacturing knowledge to our readers. Sometimes that knowledge is concrete, practical and immediate, but IMTS presents a chance to step back and take a look at the industry from a higher, more abstract level. The cover of our August 2014 issue reflects that broad outlook while staying true to the industry and all its gritty details. The collage, literally created from the pages of Modern Machine Shop, represents both the breadth and depth of the technologies, processes and topics we cover for our readers.

The artist behind this original piece of art is Charla Steele, an Ohio native with a background in interior design and architecture who lives and works in Nashville, Tennessee. Ms. Steele began producing collage art 10 years ago, beginning with mosaic-style collages for her daughter’s nursery. Since those initial collages, which feature smaller bits of magazine pages and are more subdued in tone, she has expanded her body of work to include bolder, more expressive pieces, often with interesting textures and 3D elements.

Ms. Steele approached the Modern Machine Shop cover like most other projects, but with the added restriction of using only Modern Machine Shop for the raw materials. This proved to be the key challenge in the project, since many of the magazine images offered similar textures and metallic colors. (She typically works from horticulture, design, architecture and food magazines for the variety of images they include.) Despite this limitation, she believes that “a challenge usually produces a better product, and this project gave me the opportunity to produce a more creative piece reflective of the magazine.”

As with any of her projects, Ms. Steele began by stewing over the source photograph of the IMTS hot air balloon for several days, allowing what she calls her “piece-oriented brain” to get a feel for the image before recreating it with collage. “For me it’s a simple task—or more simple than for someone who doesn’t think in little itty-bitty pieces,” she says. Next, she tore out pieces from the magazines that fit her vision and sorted them into subgroups by color hue and value. The finished collage uses about 500 pieces torn from MMS issues published over the past two years.

She then sketched an outline on the 40" × 58" canvas and began to glue down the magazine pieces, using various strategies to create a sense of depth in the two-dimensional image. “I layered bold graphics and text according to color tones and values in order to create the depth and contrast that allows the larger image components—such as the balloon and Chicago’s Cloud Gate—to take shape,” Ms. Steele explains. She learned to take advantage of the similarities in the magazine pieces through the use of repeating elements, pieces of graphics and partial text—all strategies evidenced in the finished piece. For example, an image featuring repeating rows and columns of machine tools became the windows of a building in the Chicago skyline. A top coat of varnish completes the collage.

The result is an image that is both aesthetically pleasing and technically complex. Although its purpose is to promote IMTS 2014, Ms. Steele explains that “There’s a subtleness created by using the little snippets of the magazine. The variations in color value and texture help the final image to be realized, as viewers connect the points in their own minds.” She hopes that viewers will see the finished image as a whole, but also take notice of its various parts. “As readers explore its details, I hope they will gain a new appreciation for what’s in Modern Machine Shop each month.”

For more information on the artist and to view more of her work, visit charlasteele.com.