Grace Through Art

Artwork was placed on the back burner while other areas of life took center stage as more than two years passed before creating my next collage. That span of time, while not all bad, was every bit tumultuous. The most significant event was the purchase of my first house. Being a homeowner has agreed with me, primarily because it allows me greater creative control over my living space as opposed to renting. Immediately upon moving into the house, I began painting walls, creating landscapes in the yard, and diving into all sorts of renovation projects. Along with it came some serious repairs that, as a first-time homeowner, I was not anticipating having to deal with right away. In other areas of my life, a one-year relationship went up in flames, my nephew was born, some friendships that I attempted to rekindle after moving back to Buffalo also went up in flames, I entered into a new relationship, and, most unfortunate, issues within my family were bubbling over into my life, causing many problems. It was a volatile time, indeed.

The summer after the one-year relationship ended found me steeped in self-reflection. I started to notice patterns in my relationships and as someone who strives for self-improvement, I recognized that the only way to elicit change was to do some soul-searching. My efforts paid off that autumn when I had a life-altering epiphany, which then gave way to entering into a new and fully healthy relationship. Fortunately, this person was patient and understanding because when he moved in with me the following spring he witnessed me dealing with issues that were threatening to tear my family apart. As his birthday approached that summer, I was eager to create art again and so I decided it was time to make another trademark birthday card-cum-piece of art. Although I hadn't been actively creating new work throughout this time period, I had been collecting material for collage work, and through that process, I started to see the potential in everyday things. So, with a developed arsenal of material, I created:

Grace

Letting my emotions be dominated by these family issues was not doing me any good, so I was searching for inspiration from peace. The idea behind this piece titled "Grace", created on the 17th of August 2011, was to serve as a reminder that in any situation, it's far more helpful if we all act with grace in mind. The sentiment behind the piece also reflects the nature of my partner, who always acts with such patience, understanding, and peace, and creating this was my way of showing that I wanted to reciprocate. Kwan Yin, the central figure of the piece, is an East Asian deity. Different versions of her legend exist throughout various parts of Asia, but primarily she is associated with compassion and easing the pain, cries, and misfortune of the world. She figures prominently in our house.

The background of "Grace" is a piece of wallpaper that I salvaged from a renovation project in the first floor apartment. It was serendipitous that I held onto it, as it ended up complimenting the color green, my partner's favorite color, so beautifully. The remaining elements of the collage are images plucked from various magazines.   

Like my other early works, I can look at this piece and envision ways in which it could be improved, but I try not to focus on that. Instead, I remind myself that this piece is the product of my skill and my emotional space as of August 2011, and in the same way we can't change the past, I see nothing to change in this collage. "Grace" is what I needed to make myself and my relationship stronger, and Kwan Yin helped to materialize it.

Featured in this post: Grace
All current artwork can be found in my profile at Fine Art America. Thank you for your time and your support.

Dimensions of a Doorway

Seven months passed between my first trio of collages and when I made my next collage. In that time, I passed through many doorways, both literal and metaphorical. It was inevitable, as so much change was taking place in my life: I moved from Chicago back to my hometown of Buffalo; I lived with relatives for three months, then I moved in with a friend while looking for a house to purchase; I was reconnecting with old friends; I was making new friends; I was discovering my own life again after getting out of a seven-year relationship. Everything was new. Everything was different. I was a buoy at sea, staying afloat through the tidal waves of change.

Like the Sun Triumphant trilogy, my next collage was created as a greeting card for another friend’s birthday. She is a longtime friend and one of the few people, along with her husband, who allowed me space throughout my adolescence to be the person I was becoming without any judgement. I visited her two months prior to making this collage for her and was reminded how much of a true friend she is. She is a fellow artist, so the stakes were high for me to create something worthwhile. In the back of my mind, I wondered if my success at creating art that painful day back in Chicago was a singular exception or if I really could replicate that success and create something rewarding again. To add to the looming doubts, I was living a "Spartan lifestyle" due to circumstances at that time, existing with only the essentials and living out of boxes for the most part. As such, I was limited in the supplies and tools at my disposal. Refusing to let any of that intimidate me, I scattered everything I had on the bedroom floor around me and went to work. I kept the composition simple and listened to my intuition, which resulted in:

Doorway

“Doorway” was created on the 30th of April 2009, and is comprised of card stock, ink, magazine clippings, and the photograph "Orange as Any Orange on a Tree" by Nuesa Quaresma. The subject and title speaks to the motif of my life then: stepping through doorways. Additionally, I was in the process of closing on my house, and thus pondering the mystifying doorway into the unknown realm of home ownership that awaited. During my recent visit with my friend, she introduced me to the song “Tangerine” by Led Zeppelin. That song, along with her adoration for the color orange, heavily influenced my choices while creating this collage. Like the majority of my artwork, I created this piece by starting with the background and then working my way forward. Wanting to achieve absolute color cohesion, I altered the card stock from its original off-white with rubber stamp ink to saturate it with the vibrant orange. Once I found the image of the doorway, the other elements coalesced into the collage above.

Looking at this piece now, it’s easy for me to see its flaws, or at least see things that I would change or refine if I were to create it again. However, I've learned that, in the same vein as writing, we have to look back at our previous work with context. While we're viewing our previous work through the eyes of the skill we have today, we have to remember that we didn't have this level of skill when we created the work because our skill is cumulative. Accordingly, our previous work-- whether it's music, writing, or artwork-- is a doorway to the past, documenting the artistic journey of honing our skill. Despite any limitations or doubts, “Doorway” is one of my collages that garners the most comments from people. It’s a prime example of regardless how we feel about our own work (we are often our own worst critic), it may speak to other people in ways we could never anticipate. This amplifies the importance, as an artist, to have faith in our talent and trust our intuition enough to step through that doorway into the unknown and create from the heart.    

Featured in this post: Doorway 
View Nuesa Quaresma's Orange as Any Orange on a Tree
All current artwork can be found in my profile at Fine Art America. Thank you for your time and your support.

Humble Beginnings: The Sun Triumphant Trilogy

Creating art had been lost on me, for various reasons, for over a decade; so much so that when a friend visited me in Chicago in 2006 bearing the gift of art supplies, I genuinely had no clue what to do with them. While I was grateful for his generosity, I was baffled by his reasoning for buying them because (as I told myself) I was not an artist. "I'll never use these," I distinctly remember thinking to myself.

In the months that followed, as I found myself in uncomfortable places from therapy (dealing with monumental family and relationship issues), I started turning to the art supplies. I quickly found that tapping into my creativity soothed my soul, and sometimes, it offered me a new perspective on the issues at hand. I started out making simple greeting cards for friends. For these, I mostly used rubber stamps and various types of paper. From there, I dabbled with charcoal and pastels. Over time, my experiments became more complex. Then the 7-year relationship that I was in came to an end in all its fiery glory. We had three painfully long weeks of living together until I moved back to Buffalo, and as a distraction, I once again turned to the trusty art supplies for comfort. Three birthdays were coming up-- three people who mean a lot to me, including the friend who had bought me the art supplies in the first place-- and I knew that if I didn't create cards for them then, that they would not get created at all because I was on the brink of experiencing significant upheaval in my life. As I set up my work station on the dining room table that day, I felt that I was about to create something different from anything I'd created before. Wanting to take my work to the next level, I challenged myself to create pieces that transcended being merely cards; I wanted them to serve as works of art in their own right. From that session, these three pieces were created:

"Sun Triumphant I"

Officially, these served as my first genuine collages, created on the 13th of September 2008. For all three pieces, I used construction paper, rubber stamps, inked sponges, and magazine clippings. (Yes, I finally raided my magazine stash, not just for inspiration, but to incorporate into my work.) Being fascinated with "sunface" art most of my life, I gravitated toward the rubber stamp of the sun. The sun motif across all three pieces was unintentional, it emerged on its own, but subconsciously I was channeling the energy of the sun to triumph during that unpleasant and difficult time. Thus, the Sun Triumphant trilogy was born.

"Sun Triumphant II"

 

 

 

 

"Sun Triumphant III"

 

As I packed up my supplies afterward, I had no idea when I would have the chance to create like this again. However, I was satisfied enough with the results to recognize that I had stumbled upon something worth exploring further.  So it was there, in the dying embers of a long-term relationship, that my journey as an artist quietly began.

Featured in this post: Sun Triumphant I   Sun Triumphant II   Sun Triumphant III
All current artwork can be found in my profile at Fine Art America. Thank you for your time and your support.