A Journey in Mixed Media

What is it about collage and mixed media that fascinates me? It's like a crazy quilt—you can let your imagination fly with colors and shapes. I like the sudden realization that what you've been working on really looks like a —or perhaps it's simply a design.

I recently heard someone speak about journeys, in particular faith journeys, and as I thought of my own circuitous journey I wondered about the possibility of depicting that ebb and flow visually. No words, just shape and line.

No photos or pictures, just color and movement. After awhile I realized that what I had been creating reminded me of rivers and tributaries. And quite without thinking about the journey I had created narrow places and wide spaces.

Once my interior self depicted the journey as one that meandered and sometimes squeezed through a tapered strait while other times floated on a wide expanse, I thought of all the branches feeding off the main river.

Then I reminded myself of those places where two rivers met—the confluence of waters. Once I stood on a hill at Harper's Ferry —at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers and hummed, albeit off key, "Oh, Shenandoah".

I recalled the Davis River or was it the Davidson River—one is in West Virginia and the other in North Carolina. I skipped stones in that water.

So now I need to figure out how to depict all the waters in my faith journey.