The Art of Love + Hate

The two collages are a pair of opposites borne of natural materials and the idea that we create love and hate in our lives and what we create we can also destroy and return to its source. The materials are all from nature and remind us all to not let love decay and brown...to avoid and protect from the tearing away of love around the center safety of the rose/heart. I took photographs of the collages in natural and artificial light and the difference is distinct and although both sets of images are not great (from my cell) it is interesting to see how the different lighting affects the works...

The collage of love is made of peeled bark that represent the old love letters sent in times of war, rope knotted in the eternity symbol, fallen acorn that is already shaped as a rose when it is breaking, crushed shells to add the sheen of light that is love, flower petals the obvious symbol of love, and the cradle of a shell with fur cushioning it holding the acorn rose. I added the 3 Buddhist notes about love written on bark and the symbol of growing love in the feather branches.

The collage of hate has a top row of pieces of acorn that resemble the barbs of hate and the second row of what looks like bombs. The rows of vertical thorny branches represent the bars & war camp fences, the rough bark the conditions of hate--broken and worn, the seed packets represent the bodies killed and thrown in piles with the cocoon like babies, the rolled tea bags are the packages of bombers and also represent the belongings we bury with ourselves.

I scattered coffee grounds on the piece to be the black earth that buries the dead and added four feathers to represent the fallen and the wounded warriors of the past and present who die without purpose. The bottom row of black fur represents the dark ,the evil side of our animal selves that hates and causes pain while the one piece of red leaf shows the withered remains of love and the parchment blank letters to the left side represent what we never said.

The concept is to take the love collage and bury it in a celebration of keeping love and then burning the hate collage to destroy it. I was hoping to hang then back to back but to bury and burn changes the presentation and I needed all the materials to be non toxic --e.g. no glues except sap and honey.