October 11, 2015
Nine days ago my inventory list had to be turned in. I typed up my pieces, both finished and not
started, and I was upset that I only had 20.
How did that happen? I’ve been
working for a year. And my other shows
(2007, 2009) had 40 to 60 items (many small things). Well, I have 8 days before I have to have the
work at the gallery and I have ideas for two pieces that should be easy and
fast to do. So I added them to the
list. I could have taken it easy and
stuck to what I had but where is the fun in playing it safe? I really do produce well under pressure. So
when I said that I was down to 3 items, it became 5. I did really well and got four pieces done by
Thursday. BUT, I had sent an inquiry to
the SJ-R (local newspaper) about doing an article about the show. And the reporter wanted to come on Thursday
afternoon. Great news, but now I had to
clean the studio instead of working on my last assemblage. So I spent about 10 hours clearing the
clutter which went back about 4 months. I
was still working up to 10 minutes before the reporter came. But she was delightful and easy to talk to;
and Linda Post-Lucas showed up about 15 minutes after the reporter. We had a very nice interview session and I
had a clean studio. But I still had one
piece to do and in order to assemble an assemblage you have to have LOTS of
stuff to choose from. So that very night
I started pulling boxes and bags of potential items out of storage. I started playing with the pieces, trying
various combinations to create a face, a torso, legs, feet and arms. It truly is play and is fun but it is
messy. I worked on it all day on Friday,
part of Saturday morning, then I had to take the work to the gallery with my
long-suffering friend Mary Ann’s help. Everything
went except for the assemblage which was not completely assembled. This piece is ‘Come Together’ (Beatles). I kept saying that Come Together was not
coming together very well. However after
coming home from the gallery, I kept working on it and it came! I really like this assemblage which uses
(among other things) wood, a feather duster, cholla cactus, a raccoon bone,
wire, rusty pieces of metal, sausage casings, a funnel, a woodblock letter, a
cobbler’s shoe mold, driftwood, and seashells.
I had all of these items so it may help you to understand how much
storage space a mixed media artist needs.
‘Come Together’ is one of my favorite Beatles’ songs and I did not like
it at all in the 60s. Back then I was
way too literal. Over the years I have
become more open to a variety of things and after becoming an artist, I started
appreciating this song. It came to me
that the song was like an abstract painting; it did not have to make sense, it
just had to BE. And to me this song is
like a beautiful abstract, enjoy the rhythm, enjoy the beat, don’t try to make
sense of the words. I hope that you enjoy
my assemblage, Come Together.
