Ask me, on any day, to list the visual stimuli I respond most strongly to, and color is always going to be at or very near the top of the list. Scanning memories of all kinds -- from early childhood to recent, happy to sad, easy to traumatic -- a prominent feature in almost all of them will be color. I can recall the color of dresses I wore at six; a dream of a blue cup, age seven; golden aspen against violet mountains, age 10; a boyfriend's eyes, age 16; pink cheeks and blue eyes of my baby daughter, 35 years ago... Why color impacts my emotion so strongly and remains stored in memory, I don't know. I suspect one day we'll learn how the electro-chemical action of light hitting and reflecting and being received by our optic nerves burns data onto our physical "memory chips."
For now, it's enough just to revel in color of all hues, intensities and values.
That's what I was doing when I made "Ocean Wave." Reveling in color. I had just discovered how to create watercolor papers intense colored, in a range of textures from smooth to rich. Cutting the papers into shapes and placing them next to each other was exciting. So I did a lot of it, and continue to do that in my collages.
"Ocean Wave"
"Ocean Wave" was the first in a long series of cut-paper collages based on antique quilt block designs. Frankly, the first and the best. I do wish I could re-capture where my head was when I did this, because I love the richness of it.
Inspiration: Color, and the rhythm of the geometric pattern.
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