The main reason I create is because “The Process” fills me with Joy !
I will sort through stacks of photos and select several that I will put on view around the house for several days, allowing me to think about the people and their lives and how I can evoke them.
Eventually, they will become the center of a piece of artwork !
Usually there will be some element of a photo that I’ll want to play with and highlight in an assemblage, and that’s what’s reflected in the other items.
Sometimes it’s as simple as two little girls who are dressed as angels, and I’ll fill the bottom half of the frame with feathers, or a toothy woman from the 40s who’s wearing a fur, and I’ll line it with fur.
A couple of pictures were farmers, or country people, and they were outside with a clothesline in the background, and I strung old clothesline and hung the photos from old clothespins in the frame.
I’m really captivated by the faces of these strangers—most of whom I’m sure are dead now, judging by the age of the people and the photos. I wonder, who were they and how did these personal and treasured photos come to be on sale at a flea market?
Once I found this great little list of a baby’s day: ‘7:30 wakeup, 8 o’clock 1 tablespoon of mush and a tablespoon of cod-liver oil, 10-10:30 nap. That was in a back corner at an estate sale.
Someone, probably the mother and then the grown-up, had saved that for decades and decades. When I take my finds to the flea market or estate sale cashiers, they usually say, “What are you gonna do with that?’ and I reply, I’m going to make something out of it.
But even by downplaying the item’s value prices have risen. I used to get them for pennies, a nickel or a dime, and now I’ll pay $2 or $3, or more if it’s really unique.
Oddities I have purchased to insert into my artworks have included old buttons, lace, fabric and ribbons; checkers, Scrabble tiles,dice and playing cards; combs, brushes, bobby pins and hair rollers; wigs; belt and shoe buckles; gloves, handkerchiefs, jewelry and fur pieces.
Really unique items I have to my artworks have included bird feathers and wings, garter straps, and bones. The most expensive purchase was a vintage baby’s dress, for $20. I also purchases old picture frames that, of course, I recycles to frame the artworks.
