“Do Mermaids Dream of Windows?”  Gouache on paper (journal page), collage, mixed media. (9×12 inches)

The central figure I painted a couple of years ago.  I had made a set of postcards from found cardboard cutting them all to the same size, using tape to make some of them stronger and then gessoed all of them, this was one of the last ones.  I did the face and then used another card for the arm,which was lost for the longest time…found it unexpectedly when I changed some furniture around!   They measured about 5.5 inches each.  To fit on this page I shortened the card with the arm on it.   I found the windows in an old Anthropologie catalog – these are sometimes the most beautiful catalogs for collage backgrounds.  They sell mostly fashions, but the backgrounds are beautiful!   The artichoke was a paper napkin that I separated to one layer,  and very carefully glued down.  This time it didn’t tear!  I’ve always used polymer medium to glue them down before and lost most of the napkin in the process.  This time I just used a glue stick and it worked very well, no tears!  The snippits of poetry are from T.S. Eliot’s, The Love Song of Alred J. Prufrock, except for the line “Do Mermaids Dream of Windows?”  That was me.