Tea Wrappers and Painting

A rather abstract waterscape seemed compositionally complete, but totally unsatisfying. It said nothing that I wanted to communicate, nothing unique to me. So it sat in my studio, face to the wall, waiting.

Simultaneously, I was working on some collages, and also spending some time on acrylic color studies about transparency and space. My friend Denise had recently visited, and she had purchased a collage called "Tea Party". I had also been collecting the wrappers from tea bags, intrigued by their colors.

My friend Bill had commented during another studio visit that the painting shamefully facing the wall needed a geometric element, and voila! I knew the solution.

My 24" X 60" painting, with a collaged grid of superimposed tea bag wrappers, can be seen to the right.Weird spacial connections occurred at the junction of organic and geometric images with colors appearing and disappearing depending on their similarity or difference to what was behind or adjacent. I suppose other connections could be made to the friends who donated their tea bags, or to the ritual cup of tea my husband and I have each evening. My life outer and inner lives colliding.

My Collages at Shaver Ramsey

My small works from the past several years will finally have a public venue.

My collages will be shown in arguably the most unusual installation ever - hung on top of specially selected carpets from the spectacular modern and antique fine rug collection of Shaver-Ramsey in the Cherry Creek neighborhood of Denver.

The exhibition continues from Thursday, November 12 through November 30.

I will be in the gallery Saturday, November 14, 3 PM to 6 PM and Friday, November 20, 3 PM to 6 PM, but the exhibit can be viewed during normal business hours: Monday - Saturday, 10 - 6, and Sunday 11 - 5.

Shaver-Ramsey is located at 2414 East Third Avenue, Cherry Creek North, Denver, CO 80206.

A generous portion of sales will benefit the Eating Disorder Foundation of Denver.

"Space Travel","Industrial Man","First Class"."Elsie", and "Beetlebasket"

Here are a few more of my recent collages - the human presence continues to haunt me, plus some bugs. It must be the approach of fall and Halloween.

Human Invasion, Sort Of

Some of my most recent collages, at 11" X 13" unframed a bit larger than previous ones, have incorporated human images. This comes as a shock to me, because for years I've been explaining the flowers in my work as possible metaphoric people. But REAL ones? And is this impulse from my unconscious or a ghost in our house or outer space?

My passion for Sudoku, an unexpected trip to the circus, a garage sale find of Fortune magazines from about 1933, and our family's interest in green tea have provided much of the material for these recent works, but I wonder whether human imagery will soon also crop up in my paintings. Then I'll need to totally re-think what the work is about.

From the top, the titles of these collages are:

Sudoku+

Earth to Kooza

Tea Time

Green Tea

Tea Quilt