New Work: When We Were Kids

When We Were Kids
collage/acrylic painted papers on wc paper
image size approx 15 x 18

It seems like most of my posts lately have been of the whiny nature so this post is just about (mostly) the goofy things that inspired this piece.

I grew up in the East Bay here in CA in a town called San Leandro. Many of my clearest memories center around the town, my childhood, and my parents. These days I can't remember sometimes what I had for lunch but I can remember what the inside of my grammar school looked like. One of my more distinct memories is of picking up pieces of green glass while on the playground at school. I can still see the thick shards of glass in my hand as they sparkled in the sunlight. Those glass pieces got me started on the idea of making a piece that generally referenced that playground. In my mind and in my sketchbook I drew images of the playground and the school: tire swings, monkey bars, the rubber mats on the ground meant to break your fall, the hallways of the school which were green, and the black and white floors. I realized as I was writing that I have a fair amount of memories of physical objects if not many memories of specific events. Funny how that stuff works.

As I put the piece together, I began to see that a specific idea wasn't going to work. Having a narrow focus of the subject seemed to kill the possibilities. I eventually expanded my thoughts to encompass more memories. At one point, towards the end, I abandoned all pretense of there being a subject and simply started to add a few shapes. That broke through the block and I got to a little story that I started to tell myself. It involved sparklers, the Bay, tires swings, and those shards of glass. Not a cohesive narrative but just sort of a stroll down memory lane. The title is meant to be general enough so that anyone might see something and be able to relate. Oh, and I should add that the green figure in the middle is based on a statue in a neighborhood park near my home. The statue is a monument to the Portuguese immigrant. San Leandro is noted for it's Portuguese population. 

OK, enough of all that. Hope everyone has had a good and creative week. Thanks for reading and commenting.

Libby