BRICOLAGE 2023

What is a person really but a record keeper of the past…

18 years ago, I was standing in the driveway of a barn built by William Joseph Abner, an ancestor of my grandmother, Rosamond Florence in or around 1900. The small three-acre tract of land containing the barn, the garage, and a small corn crib were being auctioned as a part of my grandfather Virgil Mann’s estate. Through the generosity of my father, the land and buildings came into my possession that day. I did not realize how significant this land would be to me and my career as an artist.

Over the next few years, I spent a considerable amount of time on the land, exploring the old dirty forgotten artifacts, remembering the stories, and painting. In the spirit of bricolage, I was using what I had on hand. Whatever I found that spoke to me made its way into a painting or piece of assemblage. I used the barn, the unique elements, the dirt, rusted chains, scraps of wood, every left behind, forgotten, broken piece a treasure to me. In fusing these pieces, memories, totems into various configurations, I could untangle my thoughts, reconcile my identity; I could tell a story about the past, articulate the memory of the place, of the time.

Multiple paintings and several very successful exhibitions came from that time.

Today I am experimenting with artificial intelligence, Midjourney, using the bot to introduce randomness to the work. With this new technology, I, of course, had to return to the barn, so that I could tell the stories again in a new way to a new audience.

 This exhibition preserves the digital remains.