A game I like to play
Let me tell you a little about a game I play with the viewer: All my collages are made up of basic elements with which I construct my images. I never transport wholesale the picture of a person or object from the source, newspapers and magazines, but break it apart and reconstruct it to create something new.
The game for the viewer is to try to identify where the elements come from.
For example, in Japanese Tea Ceremony at The Metropolitan, I created the tatami mat on which the tea server is sitting from the skin of a fashion model. Who would have guessed? It has just the right luminescent quality. The wooden platform is from a picture of a horse.
Once, while making Smedley’s Deli, I took a picture of a tree from a magazine and placed it in the collage. The whole picture seemed to collapse. I immediately removed it and built my own from scratch.

Glossy vs Matte
Fashion magazines provide wonderful shiny images. Having to smell their perfumed pages has become a professional liability though. Newspapers now have photos and ads in color which are naturally matte finished. They provide a lovely soft quality as in the collage Up on my Roof.

Collages should be fluid
I try to make my collages as fluid as my watercolors.
I never create something that I wouldn’t want to hang in my own apartment.
Makes sense doesn’t it? Especially since most of my stuff is in my apartment...and not in your apartment!

What makes a good collage artist?
It’s good to be big. At 340 pounds, I can apply the appropriate pressure on the paper I am gluing, creating a bond for the ages.
Tolerance of sticky fingers.
Charge by the hour-- My collages take many hours to make. It’s only fair!