A Book That Explores the Altered Heart

For all of us who do artwork with “repurposed” materials, it is sometimes hard to explain the sticks, stones, bark and bones; the rusty thing-a-jigs and discarded parts and things picked up in parking lots; the packaging and papers and ratty old books and labels and tickets and….well, all of it. Dubbed “packrats” and “magpies,” we excuse our mania in the name of art, but the little tides of guilt as spouses complain of overflow and friends try to reassure themselves that we are just a little bit sane still sweep over us from time to time.

Now here is a book that offers not only forgiveness, but which also commends our ardor and eggs us on:

Art Making – Collections and Obsessions: An Intimate Exploration of the Mixed-Media Work and Collections of 35 Artists, by Lynne Perrella.

Most of us can only aspire to such “collections,” but the ones in this book are bound to inspire new heights of mania in those of us already touched with the “gift” of seeing beauty in discarded things. While the work of every artist will not appeal to everyone, there is such a wide variety of artistic vocabularies, methods, and themes that there is a lot to appeal to anyone. Seeing how others gather and harvest and organize or store their materials is bound to inspire.

Best of all, we find ourselves in very good company. We no longer have to cringe when someone says “but WHY do you have all this stuff?” or “what do you DO with it?” or worst of all, when a spouse inquires, “what are you going to use it for?” Now we simply wave this book at them and shout THIS! THIS!

Feels good.