Friday, March 23, 2007

Marta Mercey

Title: Marta Mercey
Size: 26” X 24” X 1 ½”
Date: 07-2002
Media: Assemblage
Materials: Wood, leather, metal tacks.

Description:
The cover of this Bible was in a box headed for the garbage. I thought that the name on it was worth giving it a second chance.

2 comments:

sara chroussis said...

2002 is my favorite year of your work. its interesting to see the changes, though.

, Ron said...

There are many reasons that I like my 2002 as well. It kind of has a cohesiveness to it. There are several reasons that my artwork changed so much during the next couple years. One of the biggest, you may be able to tell by some of my descriptions, is that my family lost many members in a relatively short period of time. Because a lot of my work has to do with memory it was very hard to work for a couple years. I made few pieces for a period of 3 years. Once I had my own feelings under control the same emotions that caused me to stall were now fueling me to produce even more prolifically.
These were tough years for my family and me, but overall they helped me grow into a much better person, husband, and artist.

Or at least I hope so.

Other reasons are size of the house I lived in, my wallet, and what I happened to find at the flea market. Because of the material I work with my work often is motivated by who cleaned their attic last. In 2002 it happened to be because the late Professor of Science, Paul Saab, was cleaning out his classroom after the building of the new Byrd science center on Shepherd campus. Many wonderful things were found in the corners of that basement of Snyder Hall. He had seen my work in town, and apparently was a fan because he befriended me and invited me to take away anything I wanted from his “throw away” pile. The Black background to most of those pieces used to hold plaster models of dissected animals. I was able to save a couple of the creatures, but the substrate itself is what excited me most.