Handmade Collage

My collage practice begins with collecting vintage images from thrifted books, mostly.  I sort pictures into categories of cosmos, sky, earth, water, plants, animals, people, people-made things, and abstractions.  When starting a new piece, I might randomly shuffle through thousands of clippings until I see one that speaks to the mood I'm in.  Then it's like a matching game of piecing together a puzzle without the box.  I align the clippings by color, texture, and theme, what makes sense together.  I see it as a form of painting, building a scene.  Instead of blending paint, I build compositions by matching the hues, perspectives and textures of the vintage printed page. Sometimes the process takes 15 minutes, sometimes it takes 6 months.  To me it is a process of visually affirming soul in nature, of seeking transcendence.