Finally Working

The unpacking has now progressed to the point where I can get at nearly all of my art and assemblage supplies, not to mention frames. The dining room was crying out for something on the wall, and I just happened to have a simple wood frame with non-glare glass and a modest matt just the right size. I wanted something with texture and composition, interesting but not in-your-face. If I did a painting for it, I would have done a still life. So for this space I did a still life in collage, which I think may be my first 2-D assemblage.

The materials included a scrap of canvas from college art classes (marked #220), handmade paper done by my friend, the late Elizabeth Hertel, scraps of copper from previous assemblages, and scraps of burlap and trim, including a red scrap which had covered the display of jewelry from Armenia that had once been in the gallery. The colors were autumnal and suddenly reminded me that I still had the four nearly perfect pressed sycamore leaves my mother had given me two or three years ago. It was a miracle that they not only survived the move intact, but that I remembered where I put them.

We were more or less snowed in yesterday, and I worked on this piece while giant snowflakes came down outside. It is a sort of valentine for the new house. I was surprised by my initial feelings of fear in the hours before starting it. It was likely because I was working with one-of-a-kind materials. My assemblage work will be collages like this or smaller, flatter works in the future, for ease of storage and transport.