Etching Collages

Over thirty years ago I was a printmaking assistant.  Aside from generally assisting and printing for other artists I also managed to print my own work, etchings.   Years later as my interest in collage grew I decided to use many of these etchings to create new collages.  For the most part I let the shapes, patterns, and textures of the existing etching remnant define the image with only minimal use of pen and ink or paint.   A decade or so later I revisited these pieces again but this time with a bit more intervention to help define the pieces even more.  For some reason I was partial to rectangles.   

Drapes

Many years ago, I spent a lot of time in tents. They were large structures made out of canvas. They would get hot, stuffy, and smelly in the summer and be freezing and wet in the winters. Frequently we would raise the canvas walls to ventilate and bring in some light by rolling up the side panels. It was an unremarkable exercise but I always thought the patterns and shapes and light and shadows made them quite beautiful to behold. These paintings were based on some ball point pen sketches I made of the drapes at the time.

Long ago, in another life, I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time sleeping outside. Sometimes I slept under the stars. Other times I got to sleep in a tent. Sometimes a big tent and at other times a small pup tent. Occasionally I would make sketches on scraps of paper that I would keep in my pockets. 
What was it about the tents that so attracted me? The infinite patterns created as the canvas folded in on itself? The play in the contrast of light and shadows? 
It wasn’t until much, much later that I began to think about what the tent represents: 
Shelter. Escape. Warmth. Refuge. Safety. Privacy. Intimacy. Transiency. Portability. Mobility. 
Here are some of those tents reinterpreted thirty something years later using a bit of acrylic paint and pen and ink. .