Carrie Albert "Sappho's Egg Box"

Carrie Albert (WA)

Sappho's Egg Box
Magic Box Art
1.75" x 2.25" x 3"
Text fragment by Sappho written in gold ink, decorative papers in paper mache box.

As a child, I often wrote stories and plays that I performed with friends. I wanted to be an artist who lived in an attic. I studied both visual art and literature in college and actually lived in an attic for 13 years.
Years before discovering collage, I collected images from magazines, gluing favorites into a blank book. It followed naturally that I began to use found imagery when making art: cutting, tearing and gluing orphan pieces back together in strangely appealing new ways. When I started including text from magazines into collages, the words were cryptic but enticing: I wanted to write too.
Working in visual art and writing is something like cross-training for athletes. One discipline doesn’t always come before another, and they don’t have to be combined. But I’m always so pleased when words enter into my visual art.