"Pubescent" January, 2026
Here is the before and after result of the Postal Collage Collaboration #15 hosted by Berkeley Commonplace.  As in the past, this round included the work of 5 players.  When the collage I started in September came back to me after everyone had added their elements, I felt an overwhelming sense of exhaustion. This was a disjointed group effort. My original piece pointed to a Noir mystery theme but others did not pick up on this. The midsection of the collage had several scattered elements including Russian nesting dolls and random flowers.  The group's effort did not yield a visually cohesive composition. There was no focal point or overall design.  The pieces of interest lay in the glacial fjords above and the naked woman below. Fortunately, I had a 1960's Sears catalog that had many technicolor pages of Nordic-looking preteen and teenage boys. When placed closely together, these boys exuded a lot of youthful male pheromones. All I needed to complete the picture was a Cougar masquerading as their fantasy school teacher or MILF. The final piece doesn't have much to do my original or my partners' intentions but at least it feels more cohesive to me. This collage ended up a bit more salacious than I had intended.  

Piece #3: "Zu Asche, Zu Staub," mixed media, Severija, "Zu Asche Zu Staub" https://www.instagram.com/p/DJc0gAxBI8U/

Piece #2: "Little Book of Protests" Collage on board book, Bob Marley, "Get Up ,Stand Up" ​https://www.instagram.com/p/DIkXUQhTgBb/

Piece #1: "Imagine Old Glory" Collage on board book, Yoko Ono & John Lennon "Imagine",  ​https://www.instagram.com/p/DHfHqFkRX47/

Tree Top
16x12 inches, acrylic paint and collage on canvas
2025  

Hive, Nest
16x12 inches, marbled paper and acrylic paint on canvas
2025  

Sunrise 
​16x12 inches, marbled paper and acrylic paint on canvas
2025  

Found Object #1: Napoleon Complex

Found Objects #2: Metamorphosis

Found Objects #3: Cry Me a River

My second piece for an Art Tag round titled "Found Objects." I found a discarded vape pipe on a picnic table one night and it became my inspiration. Other materials used include a discarded marijuana cartridge box and a London Breed for Mayor poster. 

​Painted driftwood, air dry clay (girl’s head), hair extension, silk and cotton fabric fragments, 12 x 3 x 3 inches. 

This is my depiction of “The Girl Who Fell in Love with a Horse,” from the Tales of Tono. The Oshirasama Hall in Tono with thousands of girl and horse dolls made of crude wood pieces and fabric left an impression on me in October last year. The love between the girl and horse is broken by her father, who is enraged that she would fall in love with a horse. He hangs the horse from a tree and when the girl still won’t let go of the horse, he cuts off its head. The girl and the horse’s head fly off into the heavens to become divine beings, reunited in their love. The girl becomes the goddess of sericulture in this Tono Tale (Tono was known for its silkworm industry.)  

From this rather sparse and gory folklore, I created the horse and girl figures from driftwood gifted to me by Sondra’s husband, Patrick. I painted them black, then created a head for the girl with air drying clay. They are clothed in scraps of silk and cotton that I had collected over the years. 

Layered cotton muslin flour sacks, unbleached cotton batting, silk kimono lining and disco zipper. 6x6x6 inches. March 11, 2024
This is my second Art Tag piece for Mending. 

​My mother and I lived geographically apart since 1970, when I moved to the States. I had a deeply stressed childhood, being placed in the role of intermediary between warring parents. Only by escaping to another country did I feel that I could become my own person. The relationship between my mother and me was broken by my marriage, which my mother raged against. She never apologized for the massive tantrum she threw at my new husband and me, belittling him and my choice in men. 

This piece represents the mending of that broken relationship because that is miraculously what happened in the following years. By the time she passed away in November, 2023, we had come full circle. We started traveling together and through those travels, we talked about a lot of things in her life. I learned to laugh at her insults and to admire all she had done as a single parent. I understood her better than any other person in the world. I knew that she loved me and all her children to the best of her ability.    

This new Art Tag round is "Mending," a very appealing topic. After some thought, I decided to work on a relationship piece using a faded child's kimono that I picked up at a Tokyo flea market in 2019. The top image is an iconic photo of my mom, who couldn't get by without coffee in the morning and afternoon. The lower image is me looking pouty in my favorite cowgirl outfit. My challenge now was what to put in the space between us.
I read my mom's journal last night and was struck by the banality of her observations. The journal was written intermittently over the last 12 years of her life. Up to her 70’s she used to write the most engaging and interesting observations in her weekly planners. In this journal, she recorded her aches and pains, daily chores, and meals taken with my sister and niece. She also pasted many newspaper clippings of recipes, healthy habits, gardening, and cartoons. I was pleased to note that her final entry, made in the summer of 2020, was still coherent even when she had trouble interacting with others. She wrote in Spanish, English and Japanese, which was also interesting, as during my visits with her in 2019 she spoke exclusively Japanese.
I was going to incorporate some of her writing in this piece but abandoned that idea. Last night in my dream I came up with exactly what I want to fill in the space between my mom and me. It will be an embroidery. I had to do a bit of research on Etsy and found the perfect embroidery pattern and on Amazon, a seemingly amazing wash away transfer paper. Have downloaded the pattern but Amazon will take until Wednesday to deliver the transfer paper. Can't wait to go on to the next step.

​This is a portal for summoning the dead. The red faceless dolls attached to the rim are called oshirasama and were used in Japan by blind female shamans (itako), as part of the summoning ritual (kuchiyose). The green tulle represents ectoplasm that envelopes a small glow-in-the-dark amulet. This is my third piece for a round of Art Tag on the topic of "portals."