​My Original Collage "Carina" depicts a portion of the Hubble telescope image, showing  a dying star surrounded by the powerful “star birth clouds”. One of the most active areas in our perceived universe is the Carina Nebula.  Located in the constellation Carina, which is observable from Earth’s southern hemisphere, Hubble's view of the nebula shows the chaos of star death and birth in stunning detail. For me, this work became a study of the cycle of life and death; I was grieving my friend’s death from breast cancer, she was young and childless.  She herself, the luminous being, and the part of me that I saw in her, was never, could never be, echoed in anyone else.

I create Original Collages using a technique that I developed myself.  I  snip tiny bits of paper from a curated collection of magazines and catalogs. Each minuscule bit of paper is carefully selected and painstakingly glued to an archival board. I  don't merely choose color and shape - Look closely and you can see the small pieces that went into the creation. There are secret messages!

Many people are drawn to view the prominent black square in the upper right corner - what is it, they wonder. I have heard many theories, from "the bourne from which no traveler returns" to "the postage stamp from the Almighty." All suppositions are correct, of course, as they are subjective. But I will share this: the original Hubble telescope was underfunded, and this "blackout" was the way scientists communicated that they needed to be funded fully to produce the entire image. (It worked by the way - Hubble telescope got its funds!)

This Original Collage is now in a private collection.