A Poet's Garden Collage

Because life is full of contradictions and unpredictable, organic and spontaneous, I wanted an art form that reflects all the mess and beauty of living. After trial and error and endless experimentation I have found creating collages, with an occasional painting thrown in, to be the perfect form. I can take disparate elements and create a delicate harmony with all the different pieces playing off of each other, some going off the frame extending the boundaries into space three dimensionally, a cross between painting and sculpture. For a number of years I left visual art to become a maker of functional pottery as I felt it terribly important that people have objects for everyday use that are beautiful. The natural spontaneity I needed to create pottery, as the pliability of the clay is in constant flux, naturally led me to collage for I find that they are best when created organically and spontaneously and then later refined. Ultimately, creating functional pottery became too limiting and I needed a form where there were greater possibilities. As an artist living in NYC I am thoroughly influenced by the rhythm of the city and all the craziness that goes with millions of people jostling each other in the streets and sidewalks trying to negotiate construction and everything else that comes with living in a large metropolitan area. How do humans come to terms with such chaos? And yet there is an underlying harmony. And here I am back to making collages with all the physical and philosophical dancing that goes along in creating them. I love the dynamics, the underlying structure and the color and texture that add to the whole. And most importantly the human element, the figurative that spurs an association, a feeling, a thought, an identification. I have fallen in love with certain figures that I use again and again like the flower so poignantly struggling to maintain its beauty in a world that is trying to bring it down, much like the human coming to terms with day to day life and finding a greater meaning in that life-flower as a reflection of the human. The visual form of language is also an endless fascination for me which I constantly incorporate into my work.