As an educator and visual artist in New Orleans and now Chicago, I first became attracted to recycled, found, free, or cheap materials as a means of creation due to the equity and accessibility of material, and the accessible visual language found in that material which both inhabits and defies the concept of “fine art.” While living in New Orleans I saw Henri Matisse’s cut out forms everywhere — in the tropical foliage, the shapes of cast shadows, the Old World architecture, and especially in the vibrancy of Caribbean colors. I began to experiment with naturalist shapes inspired by Matisse and the fragmented, yet cohesive book cover designs and collages of John Gall. Then I gravitated toward using materials with variations in value and hue to create a sense of light and movement in works comprised of naturalistic shapes. Since returning to Chicago, I’m moved and constantly inspired by the intuitive compositions my students create as well as the stratified elements of Chicago — its people, languages, architecture, and ever-changing borders. In my abstract series of paper collage, I investigate images of nature and manipulate dissected parts of those images to create compositions that are layered and shifting.
