I Thought I Knew You

paper collage, watercolor, tempera, and marker, 19cm x 17.8cm

Artist’s Statement: Compared to painting, ceramics, or sculpture, millennia old art forms, collage joined the visual feast only a century or so ago. I met it during its exuberant 1960s and began ardent contributions. I admire its ability, through novel juxtaposition, to clean off, in Picasso’s phrase, “dust of everyday life.” Pulp ephemera made for quick use and extinction can mix with archival paper for a rave of prince and pauper. I relish assisting those celebrants. Recently, as in I Thought I Knew You, I’ve added watercolor, tempera, and rough erasure. And I continue use of song lyrics as inspiration for emotional tenor. The 1965 Beatles song “I’m Looking Through You” supplied my title: I’m looking through you/ where did you go?/ I thought I knew you/ What did I know. It encouraged me to rub away most of a fussy figure in top hat. Into his absence, I’ve slotted a small man cut from an alumni magazine; a woman, giant by comparison (borrowed from 19^th century German realist Wilhelm Leibl), watches with skeptical yet not unkind curiosity. May the viewer feel welcome to consider what she divines.  

Richard Baldasty, collagist and poet, lives in Spokane, Washington. He was a Fall Semester 2023 visiting artist at Flathead Valley Community College, Kalispell, Montana in conjunction with an exhibit of twenty-five of his images. He writes a monthly essay for the Dorothy DayLabor Forum Newsletter, an eastern Washington journal of opinion and discussion from a politically left perspective.

A Song for Richard