Installation and Collage!

 Conflict

Collage

25" x 18"

With this collage I wanted to show more of the harsh, clashing side of my tornado experience with the cold and hot colors together.  One could see this piece in a few different ways, maybe the hot and cold air hitting each other that creates storms.  Or maybe the emotional side, all the different emotions that it caused colliding inside each person it affected.  I know I have mixed emotions about the tornado, it was awful and tragic yes, but for me a lot of good things and personal growth came out of it.  Those kinds of things are what made me create this collage :-)

After the Storm

Installation

8' x 4' x 4'

 Detail

Detail

This was my first installation piece, and I am crazy excited about it!  I have never attempted anything like this before, and I'm so glad I did.  It took about three months of working on it every spare moment I had to create it, but it's finally done!  With this piece I wanted to show the hopeful side of the experience.  The phoenix represents rebirth, and tornado is its nest, or where it came from.  And I chose to make the phoenix a baby;  I wanted to show the part after the storm (comparing the storm to the adult phoenix bursting into flames) where we are rebuilding and starting over (the baby being reborn of the ashes).  The blue dripped paint for the walls could be seen as the tears that were shed, or as the rain after the storm had passed.  I wanted the young bird to be a symbol of hope for the rebuilding.  And I hope that anyone who has gone through anything like this can find hope in their situation too. Have faith!

Some photos from my newest series!

Summer Breeze

Make Yourself at Home

These are some photos from a series I titled "Beautiful Abandonment."  I found this old empty farm house out in the middle of no where in north central Kansas a few months ago, and I was very intrigued by it.  I am drawn to roughed up, deteriorating textures, so this house was right up my alley.  With the help of my boyfriend, I gathered enough courage to go inside the house (I just knew we were going to get sprayed by a skunk or something, but we didn't!)  We looked around, and I started picturing furniture in each of the rooms. I imagined a baby's crib, decorations, curtains, and many other things.  I thought it would be really fun to layer photos of these things with the photos of the aging rooms.  I love contrast in values (dark and light) in all my photography, and with this series I have been playing with other forms of contrast, like old and new, smooth and rough, ect.  And with the titles too, I wanted to give each photo a warm, comforting, peaceful title, to contrast the torn up, worn down walls of each room. 

I aim to put this series in an art show someday, so if you would like to see more you will have to come to my show :-P I hope you enjoy looking at these as much as I've enjoyed creating them! 

Old Stuff!