The opening for Concord Art’s MJ2: Collage, Crafts, Drawing, Graphics, Mixed Media, Photography, Printmaking 2024 is February 22nd at 5:30pm. The show will run through February 11th 2024. My collage Retablo: Music was selected as part of the show.

Artist Statement

I am launching into this statement with a Thoreau quote. We are in Concord after all!

The compelling part of this Thoreau quote is the idea of chasing down that which speaks to you. As an artist, it might be the meat of the endeavor. Taking risks and experimenting is a way to 'know your own bone.' Making this retablo collage started as something that caught my attention out of the corner of my eye in the process of printmaking. Retablos are usually devotional paintings of Saints. In the process of investigating what it was that had caught my attention, I made three mixed-media collage retablos, a trinity. I named them Music, Beauty, and Love. 

The experiment to make these collages into retablos was probably seeded by my visit to El Santuario, a chapel in Chimayo, New Mexico. The artistry of the altarpiece, and other art in the chapel, have a beautiful and humble folkart-like magnificence in their use of wood and colorway. I was moved by the human devotion to craft and to beauty and to that which is transcendent. I am not religious, but I try to work with my own susceptibility in art. Back to Thoreau's words: "Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw at it still."

My collage Retablo: Music is an exploration of human devotion to music over time. The beauty of abstraction is that it allows for multiple interpretations. I'm thinking tribal, religious, and music made on the back porch.