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

This image is one of which I am fond. I don’t think many people gravitate towards it, because it is subtle. Also it has a lot going on. I just sold a few more of these in this series. As the buyers browse my collage “book” (the collages in print form), they tend to bypass this one.

Among others, they are attracted to the one of the ballet dancer, dancing on top of the water. One buyer in particular, is a doctor treating people with terminal illness. She said, although she really liked that one, that purchasing it would not be good for her patients because the water indicates danger, even though the dancer is “rising above” it.

I did not assemble these collages for a certain audience. I did them by the standards of what I feel is good art. If people like them and want to buy them, it is wonderful and affirming of my standards. But if they don’t purchase them, and some are left over, I have them to remind me of the process, which to me is the most important.

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

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

Explosions. I like them. Only visually, mind you. I don’t like the destruction. I like the puffiness of them, the force, the way they can interject a lovely cloud into a piece. Again, the juxtaposition of a vacant auditorium with surprise.

As Karen Tauches, a curator, art critic and artist in Atlanta once said, natural disaster is part of my aesthetic. This, if you have to assign meaning to it, could be an accident in an adjacent chemical lab.

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

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

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

Ice. Snow. Flame. This is another one of those I don’t remember what my thought process was. Except I was focusing on the visual as always. Possibly an avalanche.

My attachment to ice has diminished. I tore my rotator cuff by stepping on some black ice near the downspout of our house in the dark. Our dog was pulling me one way; the ice carried my feet another. Not letting go of the leash because I did not want my dog to get loose and lost, I fell on my shoulder.

It was painful at first. I went upstairs and a friend of my daughter’s mother, who had just left our house, called and mentioned the ice as something I should be careful of. I told her I fell, but this did not stop her from going on and on about the various types of Nutcrackers there are in the world, namely one where the Spanish Dance is done in lobster costumes.

She had been kind enough to drive my daughter home from an interrupted ballet rehearsal that night. The ice on the roads was like glass and the trees sparkling, not easing my tension as I left the parking lot early, spinning and twirling myself, trying to gain traction even in my SUV.

I did not have surgery on my arm, but those Spanish lobster costumes dug painfully into my shoulder, even as I slept at night, for one solid year after the incident.

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

Simple, simple.

“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.

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

Now that I’ve become gluten free, the lure of pizza is gone for me. I probably would not choose this subject matter if I were to do this collage today. Something like roasted Brussels sprouts would take root.

Being gluten free has not freed me from allergies yet, however. And when I think of how I constructed all these collages, I feel a little stopped up. The rubber cement evaporated in my sinus cavities. Glue stick is good, but it can take the finish off magazine slick.

Still, I love the process of putting one image on top of another. When I return to painting, as I plan to do soon, I will miss the ease with which I could construct something by merely trying it out in one spot, then another, before gluing it down and calling it a day.

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

Strictly visual. But my fear of flying must have oozed in doing this one.