A Question of Finishing...

Lately, I have been really productive. I guess I see that my time here in Asheville is almost at an end, and I want to create as many things as possible. Part of me feels guilty about this, as it is so isolating and I have withdrawn a bit from the family scene. It's not very often that all of us "kids" are together and I should take advantage of the time that we all have together.

One of the projects that I'm working on is tentatively called, "Watermark." I don't know where I came up with the concept. I started out by making rather abstracted windows which were then sewn into pages of a book. These pages were then illustrated with drawings I did of Medieval woodcuts of towns and cities. After that, I started very loosely watercoloring them, but I'm not sure if I'm really happy with the results.



Over a year ago, I started working on a series called, "Afterglow." This series is made up of a hundred collages made from the work I've done over the past five years. It's kind of like the "Resurrection" series, but on a smaller scale and only with works on paper. The "Resurrection" series dealt more with the works I did on canvas and creating HUGE quilts of cut up canvas (I would then go back and paint on some of them, usually self-portraits). I think though that I've reached a plateau with the work and want to shelve it until I feel that I can revisit it with a clean psyche. A lot of the work I did a few years ago dealt with sexual violence, in particular - the violence done towards me. Now that I've sort of closed that chapter on my life, I don't necessarily want to revisit it. I know that it is the nature of my work, but right now I want to move on to other projects.


It's funny because I've tried to revisit the "Afterglow" series with a smaller series of 19 woven collages that branched out from the parent imagery. These woven collages were done while we in Florida and at the time I thought that a combination of the heat and the family dynamics were why I couldn't focus. I think that I have a strong start... it's just now a question of finishing them.

I'm also working on another series of about 68 pieces. I haven't titled the body yet, but it is similiar in technique to "Afterglow" - it just examines different aspects of my life during that time. I wanted to use these pieces in particular to move out of my comfort zone, but we'll see. Believe it or not, I can draw and paint and want to actually delve back into it. I really want to reclaim my imagery. Once I'm more focused, I'll finish some of the pieces and post a few of them on here.



Right now, I feel as though my cup is full of inspiration. I've been working like mad and making a lot of progress... now it's all about how I bring it all together.