40 cm x 50 cm / Mixed Media: Photo/Image transfer, Acrylics, Photography, Pencil, Charcoal, Ink
This piece has a lot of meaning to me personally and is somewhat of a tribute to my Grandmother who turned 102 years old on March 9, 2012 and is very healthy and doing well. In fact, she still lives by herself in the same house she has lived in for over 75 years. I think about her a lot and wonder if I too will live a long, healthy life as she has and continues to, while she has already lost one child to cancer, another has recently been given 6 months to live and another, my mother, is a 10-year braintumor survivor. She herself, lost both of her parents to disease when she was only 10 years old. Her postitive attitude and curiosity towards life and everyone around her continue to inspire and amaze me.
I must admit, I started this intending to create a collaged artwork on top of a map we have had laying around for a couple years now not knowing what to do with (see photos below). And I documented most of my 'progress' from this starting point. The map was just too large and overwhelming for me so I had to restart on a smaller format (final size: 40 cm x 50 cm on board)
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| Oscar, my cat, is eager to help. But homemade chocolate chip cookies is really what I need.. |
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| Lots of 'modge podge' to glue things on with, numbers printed (oops, must be printed as mirror images to transfer correctly) and my Buddha guy all ready for action (or contemplation)! |
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| Here you can kind of see a copy of my Grandmother's original driver's license- age 14 in 1924. |
Some pieces of imagery and their significance towards Contemplating the Truth About Aging:
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| A page from a book a Laotian friend of mine sent when he was studying to become a monk, when I met him while traveling there in 2000. We are still in contact. There were many pages in this book and it opened right up to this one when I was looking for ideas, the middle image caption is "Contemplating the Truth of Aging" |
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| A copy of my Grandmother's original driver's license, 1924. She was 14 years old. |
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| The maps used are from an outdated atlas book I found on top of trash, I love the outdated maps and symbols, especially from DDR! |
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| A note from my Grandma last year after she was late with my birthday card, for the first time in my life I think. She is still sharp as a tack so this was funny to me. "Old age is my only excuse for your belated birthday wishes...please forgive." |
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| 102! She turned 102 last Friday, March 9, in Grosse Pointe, Michigan |
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| I turned 40 last July. The ghost image is NOT intentional! I guess I will remain 39 years old! |
Thanks for stopping by, to see more of my current work click here. Please email me directly if you are interested in purchasing this or any other artwork: kim@santomauro.de.
I'd love to hear from you, so leave a comment, question, or critique below!
1 comment:
Really am loving the mixed media art you are doing! And love this backend story for this piece.
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