Day Forty-Six/Image Forty-Six

“Afloat” Image. Ceres Gallery. New York. Solo Show.

Salt water taffy wrappers and Frito cut-outs make up this abstraction. I did this collage at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts And Sciences, an artists retreat in the North Georgia mountains. It is a lovely place for artists of all disciplines. Where each of us has his or her own cabin equipped with a studio. There is even a huge “cabin” with a piano and a dance floor for musicians and dancers. A truly wonderful place where isolation and quiet bring surges of creativity. The only contact with other people is at the evening meal at a central dining area, where a gourmet chef prepares the artists’ food. Being with the other artists is an exchange of ideas and a relief really, before we each go out into the dark, dark night back to our own isolation again.

I began the series of one hundred collages there, where things are quiet. No cell coverage, no reception to the outside world. I worked at a surprisingly rapid pace. I did not complete as many as I had thought I would, but the ones I finished came easier than the ones I did at my studio in town where the sound of buses gasping and exhausting outside is the backdrop.