Here are a few facts: Title: “If Joseph Cornell…5” size: 24” by 18”, medium: collage on board, created in 2023. This information may or may not verify or affect your first response. Did you notice more details after learning my title? Is there anything in what you see and/or the title that clicks with your perceptions or emotions? Now that you know a bit more, compare your thoughts and feelings to your first response (image only).

Here’s the story: This collage is part of my current series, “If Joseph Cornell…,” in which I credit the renowned assemblage and collage artist for inspiring me to cut up art tissue and issues of The English Garden, creating new artworks layered over paintings I was ready to bid farewell to. The whole series could be titled: “If Joseph Cornell could cut up magazines, so could I!” (Please see Judy’s Journal, 2023 May.) The reason I chose the fifth in the series was to share the joy of accidents in artmaking. First, I laid in torn pieces of art tissue over wet gel medium to make larger background shapes on the board. While waiting for it to dry, I turned to the pile of magazines and noticed how one issue had several water features pictured in the magnificent gardens. The ponds offered reflections of sky and nearby trees, grasses, and flowers. As I cut and placed, I decided that the large central reflection worked better sideways. That’s when the fun began, as I let go of using colors and shapes the way in which they were photographed. I cut, cut, cut, and piles of images accumulated. Some I trimmed, but then found the pile of trimmings were also interesting. Look carefully at the water bird (duck? goose?) in the central sideways pond. Its body is the scrap of a smaller distant pond, and its wing is a view of a distant town. Most of the flowers are in beds turned sideways or upside down. All in the service of an artwork that speaks about reflections in nature. To say nothing of the robed figure who drifted into the lower left-hand corner…