My studio is filled with “stuff.” It’s a mix of stuff I use and works I have completed. Having things out and visible is inspiring to me. Sometimes I see a stencil hanging on my board and think of a new way to use it. Sometimes  I look at a finished work and see something I like and want to remember.

Again this week I am inspired to write by a finished work that’s hanging on the wall behind my sewing table. A number of times this past week I’ve looked up and remembered parts of it I find interesting. This is “Life Beneath the Garden.”

This is an all-paper collage, (I often mix paper with fabric). I printed the various parts by hand as monotype prints using acrylic paint on a soft gelatin plate. Then I cut them apart and collaged them to 140# watercolor paper.

A few things I’ve rediscovered from looking at this again:

Wonderful olive green. This range of colors is created by mixing yellow + black.

It inspired me this morning in a fabric printing session to create backgrounds for a large quilt I am just beginning. I’m using a different lino cut image, but I was drawn to mix up that wonderful green.

Positive and Negative These two rows of leaves were printed from the same hand-cut cardstock stencil.

But in one section the stencil was used as a negative (the stencil blocked the paint and the paint colored the negative spaces) and the other was printed from the ghost image remaining on the plate (now a positive) of that stencil after the first hit. I’ve also mixed up the application of foreground and background colors. These sections speak to each other well, I think.

Complementary Colors The green-orange palette is a slight variation of a pure green-red complement. Putting the compeiments next to each other makes the colors “pop.”

Finally, I was happy with the Invitation to Wonder that I believe is sparked by this work. What, exactly, does go on beneath the ground in the garden? I’ve created shapes that are suggestive of cells or microscopic life, but they are not realistic. We are left to imagine.

Anyone who has planted a bean or a sunflower seed in a dixie cup has experienced the amazing process of a plant’s growth. In a whole garden, or beneath a whole lawn, there are interactions and systems of great complexity. There is biology to explain the process and yet it still amazes.

(This collage is available. If you’d like more information, it’s on my website HERE)

To all of us – stay well and stay hopeful. Humanity will endure beyond our current fears and constraints to daily life. It is my hope that once through we will be wiser and stronger. In the meantime, focus on compassion, doing what you can do to help, and enjoy creating.

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
bobbibaughart@gmail.com

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