Transformers

I always get a kick out of making something from nothing, or something unexpected out of something created for a different function. Figuring out how I might repurpose or reconsider materials has been the genesis of many bodies of my work. I had already toyed with Styrofoam peanuts, old trophies, envelopes, mud, bird netting, waxed paper, wool, and, very recently, air bubbles when I cast my eye toward the shredder. Reaching in, I compressed a fistful of strips.  I liked the profusion of lines generated by the cutting. Each composition felt energetic and emphatic, like an exclamation mark.

I gravitated toward the colorful strips. I decided to add more color to the mix by shredding magazine photos I liked from among our recycle pile. These became my color/image palette. I crumpled and molded these random accumulations of shreds until they felt right. As I began to photograph these compositions, I was amazed to see how the little forms became objects. As 2-d photographs, they had transformed into something else; images of flimsy paper became a strange hybrid of found and made object, open to reinterpretation.