Covid Art 80: Scaling heights with friends (Kathy)

In this collage I’ve used Japanese rice paper, a tourist postcard of Zermatt Peak in Switzerland, a page from Heidi’s hiking song book (see several previous entries) and a photo (maybe 80 years old???) with three women stopping for a snack while ascending a mountain, together with a fragment of my ‘stretching figure’ cartoon that I etched on copper in 1987 in Florence, Italy.

This small work, 6 x 12 inches, embodies so much of my life: printmaking, collected antique photos, postcards, and documents, Asian-inspired handmade paper, the timeless human perspective on great mountain ranges, and the vulnerability of people we love, their paper mementos and dear memories that we all toggle throughout our lives.

In honor of Kathy, my friend of 50 years, an example to live fully every day. Her unexpected death struck me to the core and I grieve.