In the “Random Bits from the Studio” Department…
These are a few wee collages I pieced together on playing cards, inspired by a friend who took a class where the instructor had them do this kind of exercise. Being much smaller, more spontaneous, and much speedier than my customary creative fare, these are a good diversion from my usual way of working; they don’t ask for a lot of planning and pondering and attention. I did these a couple of years ago. I’m thinking that in the wake of my most recently finished artwork, the mondo Welcome Table piece, it might be good to scale things way back and pull out the deck of cards and box of scraps again.
Here’s what else I’m thinking: in 2008, lots of small collages instead of one huge one…
Collage was my path into becoming an artist. I continue to find that in the practice of working with the pieces of paper, I’m also, at some other level, working with the pieces of my life. Play with the bits long enough, follow the unlikely juxtapositions, something new always emerges.
And everything can be used. Everything. I figured out long ago that God is the consummate recycler: in God’s economy, nothing gets wasted.
The wild preacher-painter Howard Finster put it this way, on a hand-lettered sign in the art-drenched Paradise Gardens Park he created in Georgia:
I TOOK THE PIECES YOU THREW AWAY
AND PUT THEM TOGETHER BY NIGHT AND DAY
WASHED BY RAIN AND DRIED BY SUN
A MILLION PIECES ALL IN ONE.
