albert  (45x35 cm, 2006)

i'm back!  (70x60 cm, 2006)

it's okay to drown  (110x60 cm, 2006)

fresh cut smiles  (70x80 cm, 2006)

odalisque and fruit  (165x115 cm, 2006)

cross  (70x90 cm, 2006)

green  (170x120 cm, 2006)

thoughts that sting  (80x110 cm, 2006)

yellow meets red  (70x60 cm, 2006)

misty mountain eagle girl  (70x50 cm, 2006)

water's face  (120x100 cm, 2005)

red hot carcass lady  (collage on board, 102x70 cm, 2005)

torso with feather face  (collage on board, 96x62 cm, 2005)

party animals  (60x90 cm, 2004)

collage 1  (collage on paper, 50x67 cm, 2004)

The collages started with my reluctance to make a "collage" for a class assignment.  It was an unfamiliar medium which did not interest me.  I could not think of a theme to work with, so I gave up and just flipped through a stack of magazines to gather cutouts that would magically fit together to fulfill the assignment.  Aimlessly sorting through the piles of pictures, I found myself attracted to all the images and shapes that could form facial expressions.  I was excited that I could create faces in a new way, formed by the most unexpected parts--a hubcap for an eye or a whiskey glass for teeth.  I never imagined that random images could form faces that I responded to and could shape as easily.  Seeing new faces popping out of magazines kept me quite entertained and interested enough to keep exploring the technique.  Strangely, the process did not feel entirely new and unfamiliar to me.  I realized that I was employing basically the same creative process that I used with my masks assembled from found objects--only they had turned into faces assembled from found images.  I see fragments of faces in all sorts of things, and they seem to want me to complete them so that they can take on new life.  I'd like to thank all the termites, jelly fish, sharks, frogs, table legs, planets, perfume bottles, and fossils out there who have made my work fun.