Free

My son Jacob pointed out this morning that my last blog post was from early October. That's right. I did my annual 30-paintings-in-30-days challenge last fall, and then got distracted and too busy. For example, I visited my family in Germany for a couple weeks. Came back, had an art event, then Christmas happened, which was beautiful but too short to make me relax. New Year, new resolutions, new everything.

I got an award from the local arts Council, "Artist of the Year" which makes me feel proud and very honored. Got an invite for my first solo show - really? Yes. My annual fundraising art project "ART ON 45" is keeping me busy these days. And in the middle of all that, I am finding myself doing another 30-in-30 challenge, starting today.

I'm doing the challenge more or less out of despair, because I have this huge pile of special edition "LIFE" books that I recently received from a dear friend. These books are from the early 1960s. They are beautiful, and a little or very outdated, charming books indeed. They take a lot of room in my studio though, so I had to come up with something quickly.

I love the hardcovers of those books, especially the backs. They all have the same design: One solid color (a different color per book) and in the middle is a simple image of the earth as a global map. I love it. I have 26 books altogether and I am intending to make a series of collages, all based on these hardcover backs.

So this is my first one: "Free."

I used photo images from dikes/levees to make an inhospitable landscape. I added sewing threads to make plants without blossoms and leaves to suggest that this vegetation may not multiply.
The scenery doesn't look very hopeful; something has come to an end, or something has just started, or both. Or neither. Meanwhile the figure is sitting on the earth as on an ottaman, being in his own self, listening to his own voice. Nothing else matters. At the end, nothing else matters.

I used sandpaper to make the sky. And a little bit of inkpen here and there.

"Free"
Book clippings, sewing thread, ink, on the back of a LIFE World Library book, 8" x 11"