Source of the Material
I havea storage bin of printed material collected over the years. I use the material for small collages and, at one time, for Artist Trading Cards that I was trading. For whatever reason, the volume in the bin never seems to decrease. When I create a collage I'm not really looking at how the subjects fit together, but how the shape and color work together. I don't want to create meaning, I want relationships o nthe page. The viewer can create meaning. I have three types of collages that I am currently working on: a series created from yellowing text pulled out of pulp novels of the 50s and 60s that mimic organic forms, a series based on patterns created from knots of yarn, and more traditional exercises where I play with layouts.
Roots and Rhizomes
These were originally created for a show at the Beebe estate. They are large wooden pieces that have been painted black with cutout paper affixed. The cutout paper is from small paperbacks that I picked up from library sales. The yellowed paper give a feeling of decay and warmth that contrasts with the glossy black paint. The paper is cut into roots, runners, rhizomes, etc. I wanted to get a very organic feeling from the paper, maybe a memory of the trees they once were, at the very least vegetative matter that has invaded the dark once again. After the process of matching different pieces up and pasting them to the canvas, I sprayed some clear gloss fixative on them to protect from dust and scratches (the yellowed paper is very fragile and likes to rip and disintegrate, this slows the process down). There are smaller paper pieces that use scraps of paper that weren't used in the larger pieces. These feel more like detailed shots of a bigger piece.
Other collages
The last few pieces I created were geometric shapes made out of bands of collaging material. They are meant to reflect some kind of alchemical mix of elements and colors into a unified whole. I I also have some older collages that reflect what was going on in the artist trading communities during the early 2000s. These are larger studies based on ATCs that I sent out.
