Series Overview

Deconstructed Books

As a collage artist, my creative journey has been an all encompassing exploration of materials and the stories they can tell. One of my favorite aspects of this adventure is the search for unique fodder to use in my collages, which has led me to amass a collection of vintage books that I've dissected and repurposed into artwork, entitled the series called "Book By Its Cover". Transforming these unique covers, as well as the inner images from these forgotten treasures with vintage illustrations, found photographs and my own personal snapshots, I create three-dimensional vignettes that evoke a sense of nostalgia and transport the viewer to another time and place.

Vintage maps

 I am intrigued by the metaphorical connection of the map.  How a map both literally and figuratively connects us to a place or a time from the past and brings us to the present. Using vintage imagery, maps and found photographs in my hand-cut collages, I conjure up nostalgia through location and memories in the series All Over The Map.

Modern Nostalgia

I am motivated by the pursuit of the hunt for the images both in print and through the viewfinder.  The process of hand cutting then layering pieces into exaggerated form is both meditative and stimulating.  Each piece is meticulously cut to create a one of a kind dreamlike composition letting the viewer decide what is true and what is imaginary. The series Modern Nostalgia captures the past in a contemporary way and embodies the attitude that anything is possible.  The practice is meaningful to me as it brings me back to my childhood aspirations of exploration, combining memory, reality and fantasy.

Americana

When one says "you can't make this shit up," they must have been talking about 2020.  Starting with the wildfires in Australia, the Covid-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests, the death of RBG and everything leading up to the US Election,  2020 is one for the books.  So much is at stake!

Like most, my mind had been preoccupied with all of these issues and especially this deadly virus and the state of the Union.  Sequestered away during quarantine, I had been unable to focus on my daily collage practice.  I spent hours and hours cutting images from vintage magazines and books, then categorizing them into piles, but creating my usual surreal stories seemed mundane. As life continued imploding, I decided to express my frustration and rage concerning our country's division and lack of empathy.   Using vintage imagery with contemporary themes in red, white, blue and black, and hand coloring with ink, colored pencil and acrylic paint, the political collage series, "Americana" was born.

The series has been both cathartic and draining.  It's a relief to express my objections to the current administration dealing with the challenges of covid (wear a mask, please), the hasty nomination of SCOTUS, and the systemic racism and misogyny that has plagued our country, all the while difficult to see it day in and day out. I resolved to arrange the series in a zine form.  Proceeds from the zine were donated to two of the causes represented in the imagery:   Planned Parenthood and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

TORN project

I started formulating the TORN project in March 2024 as a way to process the atrocities of October 7th in Israel. “Kidnapped from Israel '' posters began appearing on window fronts and scaffolding poles in my neighborhood. Fresh faces of babies, old ladies, girls my daughter's age, and men with young families were carefully hung and secured with tape to bring attention to the barbarity of that day. The sight of these images were bad enough, but overnight, every night, the posters were slashed, torn and sprayed with thick black paint, sometimes red paint to look like blood, violated once again. The recollection of my grandparents' traumatic experiences – escaping the Eastern European pogroms – came flooding back to me. My heart felt torn to pieces. While my family raised me to believe “Never Again,” now “Again” was staring me down.

I started gathering the torn images scattered on the sidewalk. Then one evening I spied two large bags of discarded posters and grabbed them both. I felt a kind of urgency and responsibility to create collages from this desecrated material.  Like a fingerprint, each unique piece – a patchwork of shards that remind us of how Jewish death was minimized or denied – represents one hostage that had been abducted.  I intentionally made sure no face could be recognized; I didn’t want to re-traumatize the families by reducing their loved one’s lives to their captivity.  The work is a metaphor of the resilience of the Jews to recreate ourselves, to put the pieces of our people back together time and time again despite so many attempts at ripping us apart and off the face of the earth. .  

TORN, as it’s defined in the dictionary, has multiple meanings: ”to cause anguish and distress,” “to attack without restraint or caution,” even “finding it difficult to choose between two possibilities.”  But the hostages had no choice as they were forcefully torn from their homes and communities.  During the mourning period for Jews, a ribbon or garment is torn to represent the tear in your heart when losing a loved one. And while creating these collages, I tore the material to symbolize the anguish we feel as Jews.

I am creating approximately 251 collages, each numbered and as unique as the individual kidnapped.  It is a way to honor the captives while praying for their safe return, and to keep us alert to virulent antisemitism in America, which – sickeningly, shockingly – has found renewed oxygen.