Torn Paper Collages

The torn paper work grew out of the same ideas that shaped Vibrations, but the process changed. Instead of creating movement only with charcoal, value, light, and shadow, I began using the torn edge of the paper as another kind of line. The paper itself became part of the drawing. A torn edge is never completely predictable. It can be sharp, soft, ragged, heavy, or delicate. When those edges overlap, they create new shapes and new relationships between forms. Some areas come forward while others seem to disappear into the surface. Charcoal is then used to pull those separate pieces together. I am not interested in collage simply as a way of attaching one image to another. For me, the paper has to become part of the drawing. Shape, value, line, and texture all have to work together until it becomes difficult to tell where the drawing ends and the collage begins.This creates a different kind of motion from the work in Vibrations. In the charcoal drawings, movement often comes from disappearing edges, shifting values, and the way forms move through space. In the torn paper work, movement is also created by the physical breaks between one piece of paper and another. The eye follows those edges, jumps across gaps, and moves between layers. The paper may be torn apart, but the drawing has to become whole again. That is where the movement begins.