OPTICAL COLLAGES

In the early 1980s, in an effort learn all I could about photography and art (I never went to art school), both the essence and the history, I had collected a goodly number of photography and art books. I studied these books assiduously. I realized that they could be more than “mere” sources of information and pleasure; in my eye, the books became objects in themselves, worthy of exploration in their own right. The series of photographs I called Optical Collages were the result. To make them, I laid a book open and combined the images on facing pages using carefully placed mirrors, lenses, and other transparent shapes. The combined images, to my eye, revealed what could not be seen in a single image and often brought new insights into the artist’s work. Needless to say, I have ever since delighted in finally being able to say, “it’s all done with mirrors.”