what is this ... what this is

what is this ... what this is

I have been thinking how I can describe what it is I do and what will get posted on this blog. 

I am self taught:  No art school, no photoshop training, I try to transform any image that grabs me.  I'm intuitive in how I edit images.  Currently using Acorn..props to them and their program.

Started taking photos seriously seven years ago and was initially drawn to mold, rust, graffiti, signage of all kinds.  Moved on to other peoples art works; museums and art fairs when I travel.

I shoot with a macro lens so close ups: detail, flat surfaces, the intersection of image and edge, the transition.

Lately: faces and backgrounds.  I mirror and distort, sharpen, subtract, darken, heighten... Anything that will transform the 'found' into something that becomes mine.

I love color, probably to excess, and consider these images as jewels, totems, symbols.

I don't plan. I react to what I see and follow the aha! inside as the path and method.  Less thought and more emotion.  As I've kept editing I have noticed themes and patterns in the work so the thinking side of it has grown more deliberate.

I'd describe myself as a surrealist in a modern sense.  I want the work to sit on an edge, or really multiple edges:  CUTE   SCARY   CREEPY  especially in the collaged works.

An object that requires being 'seen' two or three times and whose impact changes each time.

A visual message unlike most of what we see in the world... which is 'read' and dismissed before it becomes even conscious. These objects are made so the viewer will startle, chuckle, be repelled,  be pulled back in.  That's the plan anyway...enjoy.

The blog: as a forum and structure so what has been a solitary enterprise becomes less so.