Every morning begins with my feed, which brings me images and spaces to consider for collaging. This collage uses three of them.
One comes from an outdoor shower. One comes from a gym. The room comes from a news article with tips for decorating a small space.
An algorithm selects each one and sends it to me.
Each presents a version of the good, at least to the people who made it.
The collage places them in one composition. The flexed arm is the foreground, the showering figure the middle ground, the furnished room the background. Three flat images produce the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface.
Editing on the iPhone unifies them. Focus, sharpness, and softness are adjusted until the three sources read as one space.
At the bottom edge, a fragment of caption remains from the source: "Solid G…" I leave it in because it identifies the image as coming from social media, and because the word states what all three sources promise. "Solid" means firm, full, and complete: a solid body, a solid build, a solid home.
The source of inspiration is an artwork seen in the same article on best practices in home design: in a pink bathroom, a reclining figure in red on a desert highway, reflected in a mirror. Two things in that work hold my attention: the intensity of the color and the relation of the figure to the ground. As an artist, it is important for me to find other artists who are pushing the same boundaries, each in a distinct way.
For many artists, the payoff is found in the long road. It may come as a future audience, a better understanding of the purpose behind the work, or both. Endurance is critical to building a successful portfolio. Artists make endurance pay by defining a unique visual point of view and by finding the audience that connects with that view.