Photomontages
Photomontages are “Time Places”, memories of the experience of places and moments. Filled with emotional content and subtext, the paintings are in some ways more vivid than the actual experiences.
Multiple individual photographs are collaged together to create a panoramic scene that plays with perspective. The collage is placed onto a canvas and the montage is finished by painting the rest of the scene. The subject matter ranges from gardens and fields to homes and museums almost always inhabited by animals or people. Like walking in on a dream sequence or montage in a film, the visual reality is convincing because of the photo-realistic qualities.
I first started to work with photo collage in the same way as David Hockney. I took many photos from different vantage points and put them together. I painted bright colors on the canvas just to have a place to start from. Gradually I painted over every one of those bubble gum background colors except this one. For a long time my mother had this painting in her bedroom. I took it back to finish and refine it. She and everyone else have always referred to it as the Yellow Brick Road.
This was my home for a short time. It had never been a real home to anyone before myself and the man in the foreground. The couple who lived there began the conversion from a barn into a house. He was an architect, and the pressure of building their own home seems to have stressed their marriage. They divorced after all of the rough work was done. My friend and his then-wife bought this house while visiting the area on tour with their dance company. On holidays from their NYC loft and dance studio, he began finishing the insides; she worked on the gardens. “The Barn” became our shelter as we sought a different and new identity together. This home lasted a short time, but I will never forget the time spent there.
This work no longer exists; the photograph is its only record.
He asked me to move into his Harlem apartment after I spent Thanksgiving weekend with him. When he was young, innocent and sweet, he worked for a Tibetan monk, driving him from event to event and cooking for him. His apartment had a lot of Tibetan rugs and other urban “artifacts” gathered from NYC curbs, polished, cleaned, dusted regularly and placed carefully around his three-room apartment. We slept on a foam cushion on the living room floor, as the street-side bedroom was too noisy and hot. While he was away, I photographed myself and the space. I surrounded myself with the field of flowers that was our lawn at “the Barn” and painted a night scene on either side. I opened up my experiences to the viewing of others.
This was one of my first montages. I was interested in bending space and seeing around corners, in a cinematic way. If you were there, you would turn your head to look in different directions, and it would take a few seconds to see everything. On a single canvas you see it all at once, with no time lapse. This was the barn David and I lived in, in Jewett. The long mountain drive, and at times the snow, kept us isolated, but that made it even more lovely and precious.
When I lived in the mountains of Jewett, NY with David, we often visited Colgate Lake and swam there in the summers. More than a decade later, we filmed part of Kuma Brings the Pearls there. One fall day David walked out onto the rocks, with a roaring waterfall surrounding him. He also appears in the back on the left, in warrior pose. For months I had watched him thinking, and that moment stood out to me. I didn’t know his thoughts, but I sensed their depth.
This was one of the last images I photographed before we began to part. We were driving through the hills with a friend and supporter of his when I asked him to stop so I could photograph the mountains and the cows as the seasons changed. Later, when I put the photos together, I placed one cow outside the fence. He is both “free” and unconcerned about his freedom.
His last piece of dance choreography for his and his ex-wife’s dance company was performed at the Pompidou Center in Paris. I went with him for the week of rehearsals and the few performances. We visited the Rodin Museum, and I saw the Eiffel Tower from a distance. He posed like the statues in the gardens, torso twisted and head looking behind. There were two small photos of him in these poses on the main pedestal. My husband removed one of them and placed it in a drawer. I removed the other. I painted over all of the other visitors to the museum. In the upper right corner of the painting he lies unnoticed on a bench.
Mole is my dog, named after the Spanish chocolate sauce. He is walking up my stairs right now. A week before we left for a two-week camping trip, Mole disappeared. This wasn’t unusual for us; the dogs often adventured for a day or two before coming home. However, a neighbor spotted Mole on another person’s leash, called after them, and the person ran off. I put up lost dog posters all over town and reluctantly left with my cell phone and family for our yearly camping trip. I checked my phone for news of Mole every day. I brought this montage of a beautiful Canadian garden with me and changed the center eight times during those two weeks. Right before we were to leave, news of Mole came. He had been taken by a homeless man living in his car at a gas station nearby. They noticed the dog when they came to evict him. We left the next day and came home to Mole.
This painting was unfinished. There was no place in my life to finish it. The Pompidou Center and its fountain are in the background. He and I share a French meal. I took his photo and then he took mine. It looks like we are on a giant teeter-totter, buoyantly floating up and down in turn.
This work no longer exists; the photograph is its only record.
This is my friend, the dancer with the longest legs, lying on his Tibetan rug, looking back at me forever. I once showed my work at a very nice local supermarket. This painting could be seen from outside the market, and everyone had to walk by it as they left with their groceries. Every time I drove past, I thought of him staring back at me, and of my husband, his children, his ex-wife and his friends having to pass by this portrait of my ex-boyfriend.
This work no longer exists; the photograph is its only record.
On that same Costa Rica trip we stayed in Puerto Viejo, where an amazing brick dragon adorned a hostel we often biked past. I photographed Tim there, where he was so happy. He had introduced me to Costa Rica: when we first met, he told me, “I want to move there.” I immediately said, “Let’s go visit.” Tim well deserves this portrait. Everyone should have their portrait made in a place that makes them so happy.
The woman falling is me, in a metaphorical sense. My foot problem lasted for years. At times I felt like I was in free fall. It was surreal to be traveling through the tropical paradises of Costa Rica and Panama and be able to stand or walk for only a short time. Yet I could swim and bike. I felt like a mermaid forced to live on land.
On the farm I had a hidden camping spot right by the stream, where I went to get away from everyone. Occasionally I brought a special visitor or two. In the montage are my dog Cal and the bike Tim gave me, with Mi Amor written on it. There was a fire pit, with firewood always ready. I was surrounded by all the things that made me feel secure.
Alice was a volunteer on our farm. She was never in the place where I put her. I photographed myself in that dress on a porch in Costa Rica. Alice was part of the reason we were able to travel for a few months. I had injured my foot, and a New York farm winter was no place for me. I couldn’t run around and do things; I had to stay still, and I was often alone. So I painted and photographed.