Thursday, January 5, 2012

the land between

"the land between 11 and 12" - paper collage

oh if you only knew.

Many times with art, I don't necessarily know what I am making when I begin. I stare at a blank page, board or space and start looking around my apartment, flipping through catalogs or books. I'll play with a new medium, seeing where the properties of it direct my hands. After I start though, things take clear directions and sometimes abrupt changes in direction. I'll stare at something thinking it's one thing and then due to a single brush stroke, cut or addition of a new piece, it's something else completely. Sometimes I take all the collage pieces I've collected and then shuffle them, hoping to maybe figure out a way the same parts go together in a better way. It's weird how I shift with such certainty at times without being able to say exactly where it is going up front. I think so many times in life, that seems to be necessary, or at least an implied requirement - you must be able to tell me where you are going at any moment! I don't really want to know where I'm going up front. Finding out is part of the fun part.

At a certain point, after I had gathered a few pieces of this collage, I suddenly knew what it was about. As abstract as it might be, this is so close to the reality I experienced. Art lets me say things my words will never do justice to.

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