Cleaning up my studio in preparation for Studio Tour 2019 (August 17-18) means finishing up unfinished projects, finessing less satisfactory projects, shuffling & categorizing work, etc. Some pieces go outdoors, becoming slowly disintegrating Yard Art, others are completed, improved & better presented, and a few just filed away out of sight.

Many of my assemblage & collage works come together slowly, and I accumulate found objects that claim me; really, I don’t claim them! Many of these items do find a place in a finished work, but that may take years. Meanwhile I arrange & re-arrange the most interesting finds along with my most experimental creations. These get photographed and enjoyed, but also take up a lot of space and collect a lot of dust. Some of these just need to be abandoned, they will never “fit”.

The piece shown here evolved from working with wax a few years ago. The center part is made from mat board, dried grasses, thread and cheesecloth saturated with wax. It has been mounted into an old wooden desk in-box, painted black. For a long time it featured a folded paper sad dog, but that bit of paper finally lost its charm, and the mountainous rock and a cast resin figure took its place.

I cleaned it up today, making a few alterations, and mounting the polymer clay bones (on the top) and the sleeping resin figure permanently. This should probably get a glass or clear acrylic facing to keep out dust and protect it, but … it is, of course, an odd size. I am not going to order glass, or carefully cut and bevel acrylic unless someone wants to buy this piece. And that is not too likely to happen!