=some stuff done on the way to Florida & back & in-between=

My husband and I took a road trip to Florida for the Christmas holidays. We usually fly, but the SS-like trauma that is associated with airport travel these days convinced us to actually see the country we usually travel blindly above this year. I found that stitching postcard collages was a relaxing way to pass the time as we drove from Brooklyn to the Sunshine State. Some of the stuff I stitched into the cards above was picked up along the way.

In whatever hotels we'd stop to spend the night I'd be sure to tear a few pages out of the Gideon Bibles that were left in the night-table drawers. I painted these birds on them—fallen sparrows as I think of them—and then I stitched the pages together. Did I feel bad about defacing Holy Bibles that weren't mine? In a word, editing out all the qualifications, Yes. But then I figure who is going to miss a couple of pages out of Leviticus or Jeremiah, let alone even look at these Bibles? In my own way, I'm spreading the good word, too, after all. I suppose the road to Hell is paved with such dodgy rationalizations. Still, I can't help but think I'm doing God's work, as if He needs the help.

Above: a couple of journal pages I did during the trip. I call these "palimpsest paintings" because they are actual painted-over journal pages recording day to day events. I like the way the stuff underneath half-shows through, adding visual and textual complexity to the painted over surface. The second painting is based on a period portrait of William Blake. I've no idea what made me think of him, of all people, but so it goes. Easily apparent is the fact that I used up a lot of thread on this trip. Mile by mile, stitch by stitch I traveled. I couldn't have done it without my husband, who did all of the driving, while my hands and eyes were mostly in my lap.  

Here are another couple of journal pages. The first is a collage with notes from a short story I was writing during the trip as well as a found poem made from newspaper clippings. The second is another palimpsest painting—a view from our hotel room in Tallahassee with another found poem, this one ripped out of a (defaced) New Yorker magazine from last year (not mine either, as it happens).