I set up this page to showcase a few pieces of my art. Initially I intended to update it and put fresh art up on a regular basis, but I have been a slacker. Here is some relatively new stuff.

I have a short attention span lately (OK, I admit I always have) and have been doing multiple projects on a whim and juggling them all. I can’t seem to work on a target project when I head into the studio, and always find another big project that manages to take priority.

I took a workshop a few years ago with a woman who does altered cards with mixed media. She does a slew of other things, but this is her primary focus. She made me fall back in love with collage. There is so much you can do with it and it is a way to preserve images and bobbles and things that you just can’t — with a good conscience — throw away (unfortunately that seems to be everything for me). Below are some simple little collages I did recently with images I saved from cards people have sent me (mostly my mom).

Let’s hear it for the ladies

Here are some more examples of a new style of collage I have been obsessed with. With these I start with abstract backgrounds — mostly applied with spray paint and a variety of cutout cardboard pieces or metal implements (anything I think has a fun shape) such as saw blades or screws from the garage — and incorporate strong visual elements of collage featuring images of women found in magazines or pieces from figure drawings I dragged out from my old college newsprint pads.

I love the unexpected result of starting without a plan. My other figurative work is meticulously planned with sketch compositions and color studies before I even touch the canvas. With this newfound style I collect a few images I think might fit together, make the background and put it all together without a preconceived idea of how it will come out. Sometimes I embellish it with another element at the end, like the necklace on this woman (below), which I made out of metal locknuts I appropriated from Jim’s random collection in the carport, along with a red bead and some copper wire.

More from the same series …

Besides these collages, I have been doing lots of other “just-for-me” projects. Here is the mural I did on the living room wall. It’s a 6-foot-by-6-foot design, with birds I hung from the ceiling on fishing line.

I made this “guitar” out of one of the crutches I saved from when I broke my leg a few years back. I made this piece to enter in the Recycled Art Show for the Hudson Crossing Park Earth Week extravaganza, in collaboration with the Saratoga Historical National Park. For the middle part I used a Tullamore Dew whiskey tin. There are a variety of other used items I pulled together to make this project a success. About 70 percent of the material came from a yard sale somewhere.

Below is a lamp shade rehab I did a few months back. I found an old dusty shade in the basement accompanying a hideous ’70s-ish-looking lamp, and decided to attack it with decoupage. Anything old can be made new again. When in doubt, please don’t throw it out. Give it to J’Lyn. Hint hint.

Old keys put to new use. Poor mans wind chimes.

Tree people. Wedding gift.

This is a sign I made for Jims mother Marion. She sells her honey in the summer from a stand in the front yard.

This is a detail shot of a larger piece I did. I just liked it cropped. I have since painted over the image entirely and made it another painting, which I gave away for free and have no idea of its whereabouts. Hopefully it is making someone happy.

Riverside doodle I found in an old sketchbook. I like how loose it is. It's always fun to go through old books and see the style I was working in at that time in my life.