2025 01 That Sea Bright In Its Depths Was The Blood In My Veins

 My mentor and friend Andrea Matus deMeng is my inspiration for the collages that I do. One of her collages, Seadusa, has always intrigued me. 

Seadusa by Andrea Matus deMeng

Today I set off on my own journey to create a work inspired by her work. I started with this fake wicker knick-knack shelf that has been sitting in my basement for years.

Andrea's collage process always begins with what she terms an "audition." This was my understanding of what my collage was going to look like when I was ready to apply it. (Please note the female face in this photograph). 

I took the back off the shelf unit to use as the substrate for the collage. It got painted and then I applied the face I had selected for this collage. To my great regret, I messed up the application of the face and had to tear it off the substrate. I always tell my students (regarding assemblage but it applies to collage), do not even start this if you do not want to problem solve. 

Here is the new face I selected after repairing the painting on the substrate. 

Here is the collage and painting completed on the substrate. Next it was time to paint the frame.

This wicker boat had been sitting with the shelf for all these years so now it was time to paint that as well. 

Thus we have That Sea Bright In Its Depths Was The Blood In My Veins. The title of this piece comes from the Guillaume Apollinaire poem Cortege. It is 32"H X 19"W X 7"D. It consists of a Shelf Unit, Wicker Boat, Clock Face, Paper and Paint.