11/08/2013

Art Pieces Can Have a Back-Story






This image has been around with me for a long time - at least a dozen years  - and I still like the look of it.

A bit of back story. When I made this collage I had just begun to fool around with digital imaging. I  mixed scans with collage - making the composition by cutting and pasting and then scanning the completed image. After that I altered the colors in the scan until they looked like I wanted them to.  It was fun. I spent hours upstairs in my office in front of the computer totally lost in the process.

Being lost in the process is what I really strive for because that is when my real creativity cuts loose.
Then, as a result, I make something that keeps me interested and happy with it for a dozen years.


I love the story on this collage because it takes me back to a printmaking studio in a VERY old building in Venice. That summer Jim and I rented an artist's apartment near the Arsenale and stayed there for a month. It was wonderful - better than we had dreamed it would be. We studied Italian everyday in classes in an old Palazzo near the Accadamia Museum. It was so hot that July that we escaped the heat by riding the vaporettos for hours every day. Before we went we had talked about taking a few days here or there away from Venice - but that never happened - except for one day trip to Padua to visit the Cathedral of Saint Anthony - Jim's patron saint.

That month was a magic time for us. We talked of going back but didn't. Things came up as they will.
But, as we often said to each other, "we have it."

Yes!

And, thank God for the gift of Memory.

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