Collage

The question most often asked about this method of creating art is, “How long does it take to produce one?”

The answer is, “Usually several years of carrying a camera everywhere.” The real challenge is keeping the files well-enough organized—they are stored in several 500 GB external drives—to be able to retrieve the perfect ones to inspire a composition—often a period of many months. The process continues when I have collected enough images to develop a theme.

Sometimes I use them as a vehicle for my poetry—like The Train Trip. I build the composition in layers, blending and “painting” the layers along the way.
At the beginning, I have an idea of what I want the final piece to look like, but I am mostly wrong. Most often, the piece "lets me know what it wants to be."

I think one of the most interesting aspects of this type of collage is how varied the results can be even when using the same images.

A good example is this pair of commissions called Kelly’s Pond, and
Sue’s Extraordinary Chicken— they were both created using the same small collection of photos taken in our friends’ garden—shown below.