I’ve locked myself in my studio these past months working with blind faith that in time their will be a new kind of clarity to my work. I’m absorbed by it. It’s what I think of day and night as I continue to determine the direction I want my collages to go in. It’s a journey that has no map or blueprint, just pure trust in allowing my impulses to guide me. To find a new way of seeing takes patience and determination…a tenacious will that won’t give up. Most days I feel as if I’m just playing, which does have it’s moments of fun.
To fuel my imagination even further, I was fortunate enough to have seen the Wangechi Mutu exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum last week before the show closed. To say I was overwhelmed by the scope and imagination of her art is an understatement. She’s a Brooklyn based artist born in Nairobi, Kenya who has developed collages that have paint and found objects incorporated in them. She combines the female body with animal, plant and machinery parts using cut magazine images. These collages done on mylar are large with themes both political and sexual in nature. I can only imagine the hours of play and discovery she had to put into them to come up with such imaginative work. When imagery comes together like this it becomes an experience rather than just two-dimensional art. It made me proud to be an artist.
What I take away from this is the joy of creativity. Every artist who has achieved any kind of status in the art world has at some point worked through the growing pains of finding a next step. So when I see the end product of another artist’s struggle, it encourages me to keep working. And by the way, I hope I’ll always have that sense of curiosity that keeps my work changing. Only the limits I put on myself can stop me.