Chaos Patterns

The Lift, September 2021

A collection of black ink collages made using rubber stamps collected from thrift stores over the span of a decade.

The idea started as an experiment into creating transparent paper collages so that the layering process would not cover the previously affixed pieces. Eventually that experimentation led me to this box of rubber stamps I’d been collecting. I started inking them up and putting down layers, realizing that each stamp dried to same base layer as every stamp that had been placed before it. Nothing covered anything up, essentially making each individual image transparent to the images inked before and after it in the process.

I originally wanted to call the exhibit “Maps to Chaos Honey” but I settled on “Chaos Patterns” as I finished the last half of these pieces during the beginning of the pandemic when finding patterns became a survival mechanism through the chaos.

Thank you to John Baker and Meanz Chan for helping me take photographs of these pieces, and thank you to Deb Anders-Bond for many reasons, but particularly for inspiring me with her very impressive collection of rubber stamps.