Dagmar Maston
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Dagmar Maston
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Artist’s Bio
I never formally trained as an artist but throughout my life I have always been involved in one creative undertaking or another. I worked with gourds, did beading, worked with polymer clay, or was just simply knitting, crocheting or sewing. This desire to create has always been an important part in my life but it deepened and blossomed after I retired and I actually had the time to be more involved and take classes. I am particularly intrigued by collage art because the premise of this art form is to take something that already exists as a whole, take it apart and rearrange it to create something completely new and different. A variety of different creative processes are required such as making prints, cutting out stencils and masks, painting, and using stamping and mark making before I even get to the meat and bones of choosing colors and composition. I continue to learn and fine tune this skill set and in doing so have fallen in love with the creative process itself. I usually prepare and print my own papers finding inspiration for stencils and masks on my walks, where I will pick up leaves, grasses, and flowers for their shape and texture. But even my junk drawer in the kitchen or a walk through a store can hold treasure. I see possibility for further exploration everywhere. I use a variety of papers, some so thin that they become transparent when glued down, letting the previous layers shine through, but I am not above using magazine snippets, book pages, letters, or receipts as collage material. Really anything papery goes. The process itself is very intuitive. I decide on a color palette and then I start by cutting up pieces of paper and gluing them down. The steps that follow are simply responses to what I have done and what I see in front of me. I surrender to the moment and just do the next thing that the collage asks for. There are usually about 4 to 6 layers of paper, paint and mark making involved before I have the sense that a piece is done. I am curious to see where this new found passion will take me in the future and as long as I get joy out of it I will keep creating. Thank you for following along. |