Creative Beginnings
Ever since my mom set me at the table with a paint-by-water coloring book, I have been making art.
My mother, an oil painter, filled my childhood with creative experiences, from making food for my dolls out of homemade salt dough to painting those tiny loaves of bread and plates of pies with watercolor paint.
Discovering Paper Crafts
Later, as the youngest of three girls, I inherited a craft book my sisters had outgrown. By the time I was eight, I paged through it trying anything that caught my attention.
I loved this book filled with projects made mostly out of paper. One craft I remember making when was a caddy for my dad’s desk in our living room.
Using tape and the cardboard his laundered shirts were wrapped around, I made a small lidded, hexagonal box for paper clips, thumbtacks, and other desk supplies. I remember that project not only because was I was so proud to make something useful for my dad but I also enjoyed this craft more challenging than paper towel roll kazoos or folded construction-paper boxes I had mastered.
More Creative Experiences and Finding My Rhythm
From there, I started making cards for family members, a habit that stayed with me, designing my Christmas cards for more than 30 years. Plus, the card making became an easy way to exercise my creativity during my busy career as a mom of two children and a mental health educator.
Experimenting with Many Mediums
Card making wasn’t my only creative outlet. Over the years, my creative experiences included many different materials and techniques: watercolor, acrylic, and oil painting; drawing and illustration; macramé; bottle cutting; decorating; T-shirt design; dress design and construction; appliqué; and sewing-machine embroidery.
Except for card-making, nothing stayed with me for the long term—until I began making landscape collages.
The First Landscape Collage
Large metal print available here
My first landscape collage was inspired by none other than a blurry photograph taken by my friend Dee on her disposable camera during our annual “friends” beach vacation.
Though the photo was out of focus, as many disposable-camera photos were, I was drawn to the picture showing our empty beach chairs lined up like Mama , Papa, and Baby Bear chairs on the sand near the edge of the Atlantic. From there, I built the scene. Read more about this collage and see another version of it here.
Hooked on Collage
After I created that first collage in 1994, I was hooked. My next landscape collage was inspired by fabric scraps I collected while working as a seamstress for Syracuse Stage, a regional Equity theatre in Upstate New York. Read about and see this collage here.
I continued to layout scenes inspired by travels with my family, choosing papers from my stash of found and recycled materials, and cutting shapes and patterns with scissors and a craft knife to create landscapes mixing my reference photos with my imagination.
I have always enjoyed cutting paper with scissors. In collage, that simple childhood pleasure became part of a larger creative practice—one that brought together paper, memory, color, travel, family, and the satisfaction of building a scene piece by piece.
Following the Thread
Looking back, I can see that every creative experience in my life left behind a thread. The paper crafts taught me patience and construction. Card-making taught me design and storytelling. Sewing taught me how to work with texture, pattern, and shape. Travel with family and friends gave me scenes worth remembering. Collage brought all of those threads together and gave me a way to turn memory into landscape, and landscape into something personal.
If you are drawn to my collage landscapes, I hope this glimpse into my creative journey helps you see the layers behind each piece—the memories, materials, and sense of place that come together in the work. I invite you to explore the collection with that story in mind, and to choose a piece that speaks to your own memories of landscape, travel, family, or home.
