My first collage pieces were made as placements for my parents and were inspired by fabric that showed dramatic turquoise ocean waves, which my husband Curt got for me, along with the leaf fabric that went into the trees. By coincidence, that same summer of ’96, I had gotten the wood grain fabric to make a shirt for him. The sky was like something out of a science fiction film, and went perfectly into the vest part of the garment I made for myself, and I them made a summer top from the wave material and a shirt from the leaf pattern. I got some advice from one of the people who worked at a fabric store in Framingham on how to bind them. My parents never did use them as placemats, but rather, they hung them on a wall of their apartment.
When I first made them, Curt thought I should give them to a friend, apparently thinking that my parents were too staid to appreciate them. After they had both passed, first my mother in January 2000, and then my father in September 2001 (a couple of weeks after 9/11), I took them back home, and again he suggested that I give them to that friend. Instead, I made a different one for her, and others for three other friends. I didn’t take photos of those, though I did get two of them when I asked, the “Red Tree” and “Garden Walk”.