So often art is sparked by what's at hand. For the last year I have lived in The Flats in Holyoke, Ma. Holyoke is an old Paper Manufacturing city with dozens of mills spread along the canals fed from the Connecticut. The objects in this show come from the streets.. along the railroad yards, abandoned mills, recycling centers. The past is still at hand in small bits left for garbage. I am a collector and can be obsessive so I amassed a collection of rocks, bricks, wood and cement pieces I carried home. With time I started to draw on the objects. This simple process of find a rock, bring rock home, draw on rock provided a structure I needed. Making felt threatening. But I could do this. Always a new object to go find.
Then the book covers left by Dean Nimmer that had lived in his studio in neat little color coordinated rows came into my life after his death. I began to play with them .. and got brave and started cutting them up.. and now they are asking for a lot of attention as they want to grow.
I don’t care what I am doing. I just need to feel engaged.. to do something to make me feel connected to the something I can’t see or understand but feel. And sometimes in the mash up of colors and forms that I play with I find my voice.