The medium of collage has interested me since college, I would rip up my etchings and proofs in order incorporate them into my oil paintings. At the same time I was creating compositions for my etchings by tearing up and rearranging my drawings. Later on, in graduate school, I began working with old hardcover books to create wall sculptures. I would arrange whole books in a variety of configurations or stack layer upon layer of pages creating pieces that extended as much as two feet off the wall. All of these sculptures were sealed in epoxy resin. I would either paint directly on the book covers and pages or would create a larger ‘canvas’ to paint on by piecing together the blank pages from the books. I would initially create small collages from photocopies and then use a projector to enlarge and project these images onto either my pieced together book covers or the patched together pages, at which point, I would trace over the projected image with black watercolor paint. After ten years of working with these book assemblages I was forced to give up using epoxy resin for health reasons.
In 1995 I suffered a spontaneous pneumothorax, resulting in a collapsed left lung. I then underwent several procedures including three tube insertions and a subsequent surgery to both prevent the lung from collapsing again and to physically remove a staph infection I acquired while in the hospital. To fight the infection, I had a pic line inserted into my left arm guiding a cocktail of antibiotics directly into my heart. I was 27 at the time and it took more than a year to fully recover. It was at this point that I realized I had to stop using toxic chemicals, and eventually gave up using resin altogether. Returning to the toxicity oil paints and turpentine was also not an option, so I struggled to find a healthier means of expression. Over the years, I had amassed an enormous collection of books chosen for their beautifully embossed covers, interesting titles and compelling colors along with a vast collection of photocopied collages saved in my sketchbooks. I began to look at these mini collages with new eyes and realized what little gems they were as ideas. Given that these were merely photocopies, I realized that what I needed to do was get the original imagery directly from the books, and I have been working in this manner now for the past 17 years. While I am glad to have had the experience of creating my book assemblages, I am pleased to have moved on as it directly led to me creating my three dimensional collages.
Serving as the canvas for these intricately cut out assemblages, the book covers provide both texture and color and the aged blank paper found in these vintage books lends a natural patina and a muted intensity to my work.
I feel it important to maintain the integrity of the original found materials while considering their imagery in an entirely new context. Through the careful juxtaposition of imagery I feel compelled to transform the presupposed chaos of these diverse subjects into a cohesive composition that re-imagines patterns in nature and investigates the neurotic processes of the human mind.
In most cases, especially in my newer works, the individual elements are lifted off of the flat surface in order to create visual drama to these mise-en-scenes while adding dimensionality and showcasing the highly meticulous nature of my cuttings. For the three dimensional aspect of my collages I use foam core to lift elements off the page, sometimes by as much as two inches or more. My three dimensional technique allows me to place significantly more visual information into a collage than would otherwise be possible.
I cut almost exclusively with cuticle scissors and find that the very act of cutting is every bit as satisfying as the drawing of a line. The curved tip of most cuticle scissors lends a natural arc that allows me to follow even the most intricate lines of imagery. I love the challenge of cutting out particularly difficult subjects such as the delicate legs and antennae of insects, veins, arteries and surgical tools.
Given that my work is a process, I don’t have the luxury to wait for inspiration. I keep on cutting regardless of whether or not I have a specific idea in mind. I’m always sourcing new materials and stock piling this precut imagery for later use. In many cases, it can be years before finally finding a home for some of the imagery. This is preferable, since by then the images have lost some of their preciousness and I feel I can treat them that much more objectively. Once I have thus freed these images from their original context, I sort and catalog everything in an array of archival, acid free drawers. I have an entire drawer filled with guns from around the world already cut out and still waiting to be used after more than five years. I’ve broken down the human body by category into bones, organs, eyes, heads, hands, legs, veins and arteries and each category has its own drawer. Besides medical imagery, other subjects that attract me are birds, botany, insects, machine parts, instruments, animals, and miscellaneous things such as furniture, gems, tools and prosthetic devises among others. Some of these topics are processed even further such as my birds, which are organized, by size, color and breed. I am constantly organizing and reorganizing my collection to accommodate new material. After nearly two decades of collecting and cutting I have at my disposal literally thousands of precut images. Should I ever stop cutting entirely, I would no doubt still have enough precut source material to make collages for several years and those collages would be dense with imagery
Often, the actual catalyst for starting a collage is simply the desire to use a certain image or series of images and the ideas flow from there. I like to have every image I think I might use in a particular collage already cut out and at the ready before I begin. Because my collages have recently become so much larger, and because I am now incorporating so much more imagery, I have been photo-documenting my collages in progress. This is not only helpful, but also necessary, as I can then refer back to my photos once I start to assemble the piece.
I would have continued with my resin work if not for that unfortunate event but it turned out to the best thing to have happened to me, collage is my world and I feel at one with the medium and strive to push the boundaries of three-dimensional collage.