My work is mostly abstract and mixed media and now the form of mixed media that is collage and that's what I'm doing currently.
My process involves having a lot of paper because I'm working in collage. I generally go to library book sales and buy old art books and sometimes books that have
paper that's really nice to use in collage. The texture is good. I take then images from the art books, tear them up, cut them up, and use them as my starting
point in my collages. So, I might have an image from a Matise that's just a slice of a painting, put it into the collage, and then go rumaging through my collection of paper fragments that I
have in my studio until I find the pieces that will tell a story. Often I use the images from two different artists, for instance, a Matise and a Saison,
putting them in my mind in the same room and imagining what it is that they're talking about. Sometimes I run out of the colors that I want and they're not in my collection. I can make my own
papers using jelly plates which brings in a whole other aspect of fun to my artwork. What inspires me is generally everything. That's a problem because I
work on sometimes four or five projects at the same time. I love to walk. So when I walk out in a city area or a less rural area, all of the images I see, the
color combinations, the angles, the buildings, they're all inspiring to me. When I walk among on a treeline path, I don't get the same inspirations, but it's the way I try to clear my head
to decide which project I will be working on next. These two are from the art story series where there's a piece of a goen for instance and then papers
from other art books piece of saison or a piece of matis and using just pieces of paper to make a collage that looks at a room that some artists the old masters
might be And this was the beginning. So here's a piece of the Matise. This paper came from a book where two artists wrote letters to one another for years. Some of the papers had black background with
the white writing and others with the reverse. And this was the book that had the beautiful texture of papers that's so nice to use in collage. This is one of my abstracts. Just
the intention is usually the color and the composition in some of these. It doesn't have a meaning hidden hidden behind it. My art journey began with my
first box of Crayola crayons, which I imagine many artists could say the same thing. And when I was about 10 years old, I was given a brownie camera for a gift. in my early years which didn't
really have a lot of art history or art background but in those early years I found that I was drawn to colors and combinations and the compositions that you need in
order to get a good photograph. So those were my inspirations in the early years. I studied at Northeastern, but I studied medical technology and not art. Across from the MFA, which every chance
I got, I was running across the street to look at the paintings at the MFA. When I was ready to retire, I took a mixed media workshop with a local artist who was also one of my
inspirations, Barney Mo. And I was hooked. I was hooked on collage, painting, anything I could learn. And at that point, I just started to outline my
own learning journey. I sort of set up my own art schooling by finding the things that I was most interested in and following that. So, this one is called On the Radio.
And when I first started to do them, they were all in this orientation. So, they looked like music, like a sheet of music. and listening to the music. I listened to the radio, kind of a funky
station while I was doing this. And it's layers and layers of whatever inspired me while I was listening to the song. And so if you look closely at it, you can see depth, layers,
swirls, depending on what the uh what other music you're listening to. I'm fortunate that I work in a studio and that is my gift to myself. Sometimes you don't have the option to do that.
Sometimes you need to find whatever small space you can to do your work because it's so important. And if you have said for years, I'd love
to take a painting class or I'd love to take an class, go for it. The Water Street Studios. This was was a place I came here over 20 years ago and
I just happened upon open studios. Didn't know anything about it when I first started and I saw a sign for studios for rent. I picked the studio that in my own mind was what a starving
artist would pick. The windows were broken and the ceilings were peeling and I thought this is the best thing I could ever do for myself. So I have I've been
here I've met a lot of artists who have come and gone but many of the artists who have left over the years still connected to them in different ways and currently in this community.
It's a close and loosely knit community. Some of the artists are my friends, but when we have open studios, it's the time that we get to open all this wonderful
stuff that's going on here up to the community in Hollist in surrounding areas. And it's exciting and it knits everybody together so that we're all working towards a common goal. And it's
just energy all the way through. It's wonderful, wonderful place to be. Open studio is on the first weekend of November every year for the past many years. and our fearless leader Denise
Copco, she marshals the forces to get us all ready for with publications and Facebook and social media and just gets everybody doing the jobs that make
it such a big success. Well, I think if I were to give advice to young artists, I would say two things. First, if you are not a Matise, the
first course that you take, don't ever get discouraged because there's only one Matise and the rest of us have to work a lot harder than that to make good art. And the second thing I would advise is
even though artists learn from other artists, we sometimes copy the masters. So we can learn techniques, we can learn colors, but in the end be true to yourself.
That's the most important thing.