Not a Message, mixed media on canvas, 8″ x 8″

Started at the last uac workshop the focus of this project was to show something about visions of Phoenix. Since I am still adjusting to life in the desert, my source of joy about Phoenix are the interesting, creative people I have met here.

In planning the layout I wanted to use layers of tracing paper over layers of images and text. As I worked with the cut papers I had brought with me I was planning to do some rolled up Hebrew scrolls and place them in bottles to be part of the artwork, (channeling Joseph Cornell) thinking I could frame it in a deep box. When one of the women said it made her think of a “message in a bottle” I cringed. All I could envision was that corny Kevin Costner movie. That was entirely not the feeling I wanted to convey. The Sting song kept playing over and over in my head… message in a bottle, yeah, message in a bottle…. It was my perception that altered my original concept.

This set me in a rotten mood because I was not loving the direction that the collage was going in anyway. When I got home I just had to burn and wax and “destroy” what I had created. All I could think of was the work of Anselm Kiefer: heavy, angry, burning, tar. I threw my canvas in the fireplace and burned it, dripped wax on it and splattered “bloody” crayon.

It was cathartic and satisfying. Thank you.