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Fun Facts
Where you live: Santa Fe, New Mexico
Media you work in: Paper Collage
Favorite work you've done: Loosen Your Soul
Your favorite artist: Van Gogh
Artist Statement
Paper, scissors, glue…my tools and materials are simple. But with these things, my hands make magical transformations. With collage, I create images in which small elements become my pigment; I ply paper as brushstrokes, developing complexity through construction. Tiny bits of paper provide hue and shape, while the embedded words and images saturate the picture with humor, meaning, and irony.
My source material is very common – old magazines and catalogs. From this “used and useless” paper, I extract precise colors, words and images, I cut and shape them and glue them to a board, building and filling as I go. I have spent days searching through my cache of papers, for a precise word, in the right size, and the correct color. Although the technique is painterly, I use no paint or other media in the process – only paper.
As I work, I meditate on the dissolution of matter: the things that exist in time and space but are so diffused that they are barely perceptible – like the edges of galaxies. Beginnings and endings merge.
My subject matter varies where my imagination takes me. Favorite subjects include the “space-scapes” of nebulae and galaxies, the color-drenched scenes of New Mexico, and still life renderings of pears and pumpkins.
My work has been exhibited in galleries in the U.S. as well as Europe. My portrait of Abraham Lincoln was exhibited in the White House for a few years.
Artist Bio
I grew up in Chicago in a big family; I went to school there, raised my family. I enjoyed going by myself to the Art Institute of Chicago, especially the noon time lectures. I am sure that sitting and staring at masterpieces by Seurat, Hopper and Hokusai informed my eye.
In 2010, it was time to start a new chapter in my life. I “pulled up my tent pegs” and moved to Santa Fe. I was immediately enchanted with the colors and horizons and bold skies. The mountains are so close!
When I am not cutting and pasting collage, I am often hiking in the foothills, or sitting in my peaceful garden, breathing in silence. I love to travel and soak up the sounds and sites of new worlds; so far …Canada, England, Italy and Vietnam. (I plan to add to that list.) Everywhere I go, I collect colors in my mind’s eye, in town and around the world.
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