In the Abstract

I like abstract art. I like collage. I like pieces that use letters, words, portions of words, torn paper. I like this piece. Only...it's actually a photograph of a window in an abandoned store front that has had posters adhered to it then ripped away.

Still, I like it very much. It's accidental quality, curated by me with a digital camera, makes me like it more, maybe, than a painting in a gallery. Or less.

I love collage. Not every artist, of course. I've been a fan of Lance Letscher for a long time. We didn't discover him until he was famous and expensive. But we did recently acquire a piece. It's small, but that's OK because we would have had to give up some other art work if we had gotten a large one. We don't really live large any longer. Except in our heads, of course. Or reaching out into the World Wide WEB to fill our heads with news, facts, images, opinions. And we couldn't have afforded a large one anyway.

I also like Laurie Frick. She created a collage that is in the lobby of our condo. At the recent 5x7 fund raiser for Arthouse at Jones Center, I spied a couple of pieces that Laurie had donated. You aren't supposed to know the artist before buying but I identified the work by its style and, when I bought one of them and turned it over, saw I was right. (Someday we have to explore this whole thing about how we identify an artist's work, people's images, etc. again.)

I want to create collages. I sometimes make homemade greeting cards that are collages of sorts. I put them together with rubber cement which makes for easy work but fragile ephemeral results. I don't know anything about physically making collages that last. I have made some digital collages. I made one of photos I made of assemblages of stuff. I have made simple ones layering on the scanner. I have made them by manipulating ephemera on the computer. I've made them manipulating letters and words and colors and shapes and ephemera on the computer. Not that I consider any of this art, really. It's more practice looking, learning what I like free of the influence of others. It's not unlike looking at work and seeing what I like about it and learning something new about myself.

I'm constantly learning, really. What I like, how I react to art and what art work I might someday is constantly evolving. Can you be unfinished, still, in the year when you plan to apply for social security checks? I don't know if you should be, but I think I am. I think I'm growing and changing every day. And learning. And finding out what I like. Maybe that's how I cheat death until, like everyone else, I don't.

I have been trying to finish this for days. But, I looked up Laurie Frick for the hyperlink (does anyone call them hyperlinks anymore?) and ended up having to look at everything on her site, friend her on facebook and have a chat over there before I could wind up writing this. Then I look it over and I haven't really said much. So it goes. But there is the 'artwork' up top.