This collage titled “Once Upon A Time” is another of the pieces I made for our “Threads of the Past” show at Uncommon Art. The photo is of my parents drinking a toast on their wedding day. Behind them is sheet music for “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”, which has the lyrics: There are loved […]
For our “Threads of the Past” show, I made several pieces of artwork, including this one, inspired by family. My mom loved to quilt, and made many during her lifetime. This Tree Of Life quilt was one of her first. She made it in 1990 and it’s one I have always loved. I used it as […]
“Spring Summer Autumn Winter” is a 4-part collage (quadriptych) that shows the same tree scene as imagined across the four seasons. The trees were inspired by a recent boating trip along the Canal du Midi in France. Here’s a photo that I took during the trip and used for inspiration: I found the shapes of […]
This piece was inspired by the forests in Oregon, where the trees are impossibly tall and seem go on forever. I was struck by how hard it was to see the individual trees because there were so many. They seemed to be defined by the space around them rather than by themselves. I wanted to […]
It’s been a while since my last series of artwork for Art-o-mat, and I’ve missed making them. I really enjoy working on these series, and love seeing these little guys come together. This series is a bit different than my earlier ones. (See some of them here: Miles of Paintings.) My larger artwork has been exploring […]
“Insufficiently Wrapped” plays on the envelope theme with an image that couldn’t be contained. I liked the idea of a neat and tidy envelope spilling messy contents all over the place. Envelopes are meant to contain, but sometimes they just can’t hold it in anymore. The envelope is made from a magazine image that I […]
“Too Much To Contain” again looks at what happens when the envelope is too full and the contents are released. I love the mix of modern and vintage bits here: you’ll see graphs from a 1950s physics book, vintage elements from the 1880s, mixed with modern snapshots and maps. It’s a wonderful, complex mix of […]
“Remembrance” pairs a modern envelope paired with a vintage greeting card. I wanted to echo the greeting card with the other elements in the piece, so looked for papers with similar colors and feel. As I have tried to do in other recent pieces, I was somewhat spontaneous in my approach and did not over […]
Remember the excitement of finding a real envelope in the mail, one with a card or letter? Envelopes are more than paper: their purpose lies equally in being able to wrap, contain, and conceal, as well as open and release. They are the messenger, so rarely (never?) are they the reason for the missive. Yet […]
“Walk In The Woods” continues my exploration with a collage process that is more free and intuitive. No carefully analyzed plan, no agonizing over each piece. Instead, I tried to put pieces together because they “belonged” together. “Belonged” is in quotation marks because do vintage buttons, corrugated cardboard, and French knots really belong together? Who […]