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A friend of mine from art school days at the Rhode Island School of Design, introduced me to the art of small collage with found objects. We often spent weekends rummaging through flee markets for the perfect and "cheap" collage material. This incessant collecting in turn lead to a series of collages of found and created objects, cut paper, flat metal, wire, and other flotsam. I tended to look upon this work as an exercise, as a piano player might practice his scales. But unlike typical repetitive practice, these exercises give me great pleasure and are finished self contained pieces.
I have tried to rationalize the notion that I no longer need to make these small works with excuses like: "I no longer need to practice scales”, or "they are small and abstract and not desirable by collectors", or "they are not weighty enough for my serious nature". But there is a serious message. It is about time and people and their brief moments of intersection; the slow steady passage of time, and the impermanence of the physical world within this passage of time.
The original idea of these collages came from wall postings in Europe placed on the sides of buildings to give notice of some current event, covering some similar posting from earlier “current” events, creating a beautiful patina of time passage and the trace of stories exposed by decay, and ultimately another person slapping another message over the last.
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