"All Life is an Experiment #2"

20X24" Mixed Media on Canvas

 The story behind this piece starts with an antique wallpaper sample book with a history. My grandfather, who worked in a lumberyard in Oregon City, brought home an outdated wallpaper sample book for my mother, a young girl at the time, to use for creative activities. She liked taking photographs and needed an album to keep them in, so she glued the photos to the pages of the sample book.

For over fifty years mother kept the wallpaper album. Recently she decided to remove the photos and place them in a proper album. Now the empty wallpaper album was destined for the trash. Me, a lover of vintage things, especially with patterns, rescued the book and went to work thinking up a creative way to use these beautiful samples. This painting is the end result.

It started with squares of the patterned wallpaper collaged onto canvas. The paper is completely covered and protected with acrylic medium and quite durable. I glazed layers of paint over the this background, then painted little accent marks and the birds.

The words "All Life is An Experiment. (The more experiments you make the better.)" a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, were added.

This piece and three paintings from my "Media Pear Series" are available for purchase during the "Emergence: Signs of Awakening" February through March at

Howden Art

in Oregon City OR.

Update: 3-15-09 Purchased by a collector through Howden Art.

"Detail Shows Layers of Wallpaper Collage"