OCD Creativity Exposed

 

Missing the Ocean

Hawaii's recent storms have had a big impact! Days of relentless rain, flooding, lightning and thunder storms with downed trees, damaged homes and business. We've had big ohia trees down, dangerous "leaners" and power lines at risk. The cleanup has been weeks during which I've missed my swim time. This collage reminds me of the JOY I feel swimming at the ocean.

 

GREEN & LIBERTY

 

"Water Baby"

 My return to swimming in Hawaii's lava-encrusted East Side ocean has been an unexpected delight. Swimming was an important part of my mental and physical well-being for many years. After the loss of our home in 2018 and our relocation to Volcano, many things changed.  Also I had both knees replaced with ever-lasting Titanium, and, the density changed my ability to float. However, recently, with the aid of rubber shoes, the problem was solved.  

I've been wanting to express in a collage how I feel being back in the water.  Luckily I came across a vivid poster from 1915 by Fred Spear about the sinking of the Lusitania. Although the original message was about people drowning -- to me it felt like the woman was protectively holding her child -- which is how I feel in the ocean -- held safely.

 

Collage: Perfect Tonic for Obsessive/Compulsive People!

 Another small collage -- 10x12 

Collage with Scraps

After any collage is completed there's always a mess to clean up or to refile in folders marked "architecture," "anthropology," "science," or "archaeology," etc..  Finishing up the latest "roll of dice" collage during December, most of the left overs were still on the work table in January. But!!! They were so very pretty, I decided to use them to create a tiled abstract just using circles and squares.

"Visitors at BIshop Plaza Honolulu"

 

Hawaii - Keck - Kick-ass COLLAGE!!

 

Collage Day #2 2024

 

Beyond Limits

 Another day, and another collage?!!?  Yes, this happened so fast! Playing with colors but in that luscious range of lavenders.   "Beyond Limits"

EYEING ARTISTIC EVOLUTION

 

"Dreams of Flight"

 

Upon Reflection

What a surprise it is when a collage seems to build itself, providing key components along the way. There may be a small group of images afloat on my art table "speaking" to me without words; I can feel the cohesion like a magnetic draw, but can only surmise the direction while the outcome remains vague. When that happens sometimes and I feel stuck not knowing how to begin, the solution arises only when I pick up a piece and start cutting. It's a leap of faith and I have learned I can trust the process. The image below could have ended up with one of the many "names" that came while cutting, arranging, rearranging and assembly. 

Once again it is somehow related to my thoughts and emotions looking back through the memories of the past five years, shared in the most recent collage.

Here is a photo of the collection of images  before I began to cut. And below, the final collage. Once again "cut outs" added dimension and continuity.

I scanned a conte' crayon imaged by Lucian Freud and played with adding a wash of pale blue and brown and flipping a smaller version to slip into the background -- "reflection."

"Star Power" Five Years Later

Learning to live with PTSD has been a continual challenge since the compounded  trauma Phil and I faced in 2018. 

A coma on May 2nd, home destroyed by fire with all contents, lava wiping out 700 homes in Leilani on the Big Island -- homeless with four dogs. Without an insurance payment or denial (which came later) we could not get FEMA, food stamps or apply for assistance. I came out of the hospital blind (no glasses), wearing hospital socks and no underwear or clothes. 

I couldn't drive for six months, and Phil was afraid to leave me alone and every trip to Hilo was further trauma for us both. I turned to art as a way to deal with overwhelming emotions -- finding a way to express the many processes of loss and grief -- when words simply failed.  After 400 small art-journal entries, I broke out into larger collages. I gave two presentations about how art can help trauma survivors and I was thankful for therapy I received during those years.

PTSD is about the body's memory and response to perceived threat -- you can "know" in your head you are safe, but the body remembers... even five years later. Recently, during an emotionally rough week, I found a couple of images that spoke to me and, over the course of the next few weeks, I began to build around those center images until I was able to see the how the images would reflect my desire to draw upon my inner power. Below is the final version -- 

Collage "Fashion Challenge"

 

Wishing for Rainbows (and an end to the rain!)

 I have invented many of my own patterns for large, more complicated collages, but today I decided to try a pattern sometimes used in quilting, featuring a rainbow of colors.

I chose four very different images: Overhead freeway, underwater, reflected prism and bird feathers -- all with delicious colors. Because many of my collages take several days, it is fun to have a variety of one-day projects.

Tangles and Troubles of Triangles

You can see a better image of this Collage blog: April 2022

In 2022 (for International Collage Day) I created a geometric pattern of triangles and created one of my favorite collages called "Cosmic Dream." It was based on colors of one of our hybrid hibiscus called "Cosmic Dancer" whose colors are hot pink, gold and reds. I struggled (a lot) fitting pieces together and, in the end, needed to use thin black outline tape to cover boo-boos -- but even that "fix" ended up strongly featuring the triangle shapes.

 

Here's the final outcome of my attempt -- this time I didn't need to apply tape to cover mis-matched parts.

Drizzly Day Collage -- (and seeing mo')

 When the weather is lovely, I find it hard to be inside, so while I am playing in our gardens, ideas are roaming around in some back room of my brain - just on the edge of my awareness. If I chase them, they pop like bubbles. So I wait and find that they reappear when I least expect it.  

TWO pieces sat at the edge of my studio table for weeks - A sumo wrestler and a vacant, bombed out building without doors; I knew this two belonged together despite their apparent incongruity. And, without fail, last week they DID come together.  I had to cut out the "glass" from the windows to insert an appropriate "setting". I loved the juxtaposition of the upside down skyscrapers and the dice and the way the colors and textures play in the composition.

Here's "Sumo See Mo' "

On the Horizons

Several recent collage projects have focused on cutting images horizontally, separating them, and using a mix-and-match technique to insert other images between them. There were 8 original images that I used in sections to create this new piece called "HORIZONS" because...it incorporates several views of horizons including Tibet, Europe, Alaska, Bryce Canyon and others. To emphasize the sections, I outlined the edges. I also included a more graphic experimental band in the middle using the same color tones that I felt suggested both the building structures and the unique geological formations.

Collage

As

Puzzle

Frequently, it seems, when people are putting a table-top puzzle together, they begin with "corners" or "edges" or, sometimes color.  When I create collage art, I rarely know what will go where. Some of my collages have only 2-3 pieces and I love that purity.  Here's an example.

It is also fun to "invent" ways of assembling images like the one I just finished this week.