It's Unlocked
14"x17"
Yes, it's a self portrait.
During a particularly transformative time in my life, I decided to make a self portrait to gain clarity on my own self perception. While the final result does obviously resemble me, I think is more accurate to call it an amalgamation of my appearance throughout my life rather than an snapshot of me currently.
I was contemplating the phrase, "What is meant for you will never miss you". I love the idea that everything that is relevant to my journey is always doing its utmost to be received by me. The only thing that can keep it away is my choice to refuse it.
In many traditions, deer are revered as gatekeepers of hidden magical realms in the forest. They are considered graceful guides willing to bridge our world with the unseen. I view the figure in this piece as a similar sentry. She is hanging on the wall watching over the unknown interior spaces. She is saying "it's unlocked" as a reminder that nothing is stopping me from gaining more understanding and knowledge. No outside force is capable of keeping holding me back from what is mine. I am the arbiter of my life.
Almost all of my collages start as a pencil drawing. During the beginning stages, I intentionally keep the paper as clean as possible so the glue with bond better when I layer magazine fragments. This choice results in loose outlined sketches that lack value contrast. They serve as a structural map that help me see where each piece of paper belongs. It's comparable to a child staying in the bold black lines of a coloring book.
Once the drawing phase is complete, it's time to search for the right magazine pages. This is an intuitive process. There is no master plan, I do not preselect a palette for the entire piece before I begin gluing. I take it one section at a time allowing the composition to unfold in the moment.
Unlike paint, paper is completely opaque. This determines a strict physical order. I must build from the background to the foreground. I layer the paper carefully to avoid covering the vital shape of my underlying drawing so I never lose sight of the map that guides the next layer.
I chose the green wall paper in It's Unlocked simply because I thought it was beautiful and I thought I had enough photos of it to cover the space. In this medium abundance of an image is a luxury. I don't have the option to mix more pigment if a color runs out. When a specific texture or shade is gone, it's truly gone. Hypothetically, I could find copies of the magazine I'm using, but most of my magazines are many years old and nearly impossible to track down. Plus, I just wouldn't want to. Ultimately, I enjoy and embrace the scarcity of each page. This creative limitation only enhances the one of kind quality of the finished piece.
When I'm constructing an object, my approach is quite painterly. l contemplate the shape, line and direction of every single fragment, treating each tiny scrap as an individual brushstroke. Just as I would with paint, I begin by blocking in fields of color with larger shapes, then I return to refine the form with smaller intricate pieces to build depth and texture. Because of the meticulous blending, there are always vastly more hidden fragments than it seems. For example, a feature like her eye might appear to be made of twenty to fifty pieces, but it is actually closer to two hundred or more. Sometimes the transitions are so seamless I have to remind myself that it is allowed to look like a collage.
For It's Unlocked, the technical challenge was only half the journey. Constantly staring at and dissecting the details of my own face, especially during awkward transitional phases, was emotionally taxing. I had to walk away from it and take long breaks just to clear my mind which caused the process to take 5 months. That's 4 more months than I wanted it to... but she was worth it. I am deeply in love with the final collage and it fulfills it's purpose. She is a permanent reminder that I am, infinitely capable, free, and powerful even if it seems I'm stuck in a fixed position.