i have been working on a collage series this month. i have fallen in love with this series of splayed creatures. what is beneath the skin......

it is a slow build as i assemble my outdoor studio on the porch. boxes of images that i've cut and collected for years. piles of books that may have what i'm looking for. scissors. glue. brushes and boards. carrying armload after armload down the stairs and through the back door to the porch. and when it's piled across the table, there is alot of staring. and shuffling through images on onion skin pages and rough yellowed paper. and dealing with the glaring shiny paper that sometimes holds beautiful imagery. and running back upstairs to sift through piles that are buried in the paper room. making piles of 'maybes'. and whittling them down to the few that might just be right. it takes hours before i can pour the glue. and i slide the pieces around like a puzzle of the vision that sprouts behind my eyes. singing with nick cave and sarah harmer and david bowie.
the sun is spotted and leafy and dappled on my work area. the natural filter is perfect. yet the sun is warm on my shoulders and forearms and it naturally dries the glue with speed. the work takes over. i have to be forced away from it. this is what makes me miserable and ecstatic. this work is what i am.

there has been a lull in my little world. tom was away for the weekend, edgar had a hard time managing the hot and humid days, i had quilts to make, and finally hosting a wonderful bbq with friends from work ended the weekend. there was impromptu, fully dressed swimming....the lake can be magnetic like that, you expect to simply wade and get your toes wet but the seduction is too strong and you end up laughing and gasping and diving under the waves. and greta (our golden squirrel) made an appearance or two. i'm beginning work on a series of collages that will make it's home in slovenija. i'm excited about this and thrilled to have time devoted to my paper room.....it's where the passion bubbles the deepest. but thankfully it's not a chore to make quilts either.
today we'll have a little drive, i'm sure, and we'll go for a lovely dinner downtown, for it's tom's birthday and a little celebrating is in order. i hate to say goodbye to june, but july is certainly a great consolation prize....it rarely disappoints.

in my paper room, cutting and gluing and organizing beautiful old images is what i think i do best. don't get me wrong....i love building quilts .... feeling the cottons and being saturated in the dazzling colors and patterns. and i can spend days, weeks even, putting them together and feeling confident and proud of what i'm making, sewing and cutting and piling the patterned fabrics together. but i think when i'm with the paper the best comes out of me. the images that weave themselves onto the panels are such fine and delicate creatures that i wonder at their details like the wonder of a newborn's translucent fingernails. they come to the surface as if they have risen from the depths of an underwater cave. mysterious, gradually coming into focus. and they seem to breathe. stare at me and convince me they are not simply a flat image.

this paper work is what my paintings have progressed to. and i hope that i don't allow these creatures to be choked and flattened and buried as my painting has been. i need these paper sylphs. i think they are my destiny.

yesterday this was one of the collage corkboards that piles of paper and glue produced. it was a magnificent day with beautiful light, the sun bouncing off the lake and into my little room. the paper is wild now, very little of the floor is showing, so many choices. i made two others. i'll try to get photos. and i'm making a large one today. i'm still planning to put some 1 inch twill across it in a few places......but i need to pick some up this afternoon.