Portfolio > The Shudder of Meaning

Urgent meetings
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2025
strongly suggest that an imbalance
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2025
PRODUCTIVE SANDS WERE ENCOUNTERED
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2025
America's surplus
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2025
People full of problems
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2025
dead tree, waiting
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2025
turnout that engulfs
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2025
usually while submerged
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2025
drugs proved effective
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2025
without hyperbole
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2024
A Sensible Way
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2024
unsure, however, why
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2024
AMERICANS (taking any bets.)
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2024
pain and sorrow and exploitation and death
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2024
Survival and Sentience
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2024
at the foot of a lake
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2024
DWELLERS OF THE PRESENT DAY
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2024
(scarred in car wrecks)
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2024
MAKE DEALS WITH SINNERS TO CATCH DEVILS
paper collage
14 x 11 inches
2024

Creative Impulses and ‘The Shudder of Meaning’

From its beginning, this series of collages has been about the relationship between imagery and text, and how interpretation is fluid. I had begun reading Roland Barthes book Image-Music-Text, purposefully seeking it out, upon learning that Barthes, a literary theorist, philosopher, and essayist, was a leading figure in the study of semiotics. Essentially, semiotics is the study of sign processes and the communication of meaning; a sign being anything that communicates intentionally or unintentionally, perception playing a key role.

The ‘shudder of meaning’ recognizes that, for the reader (or viewer), multiple interpretations are possible, and that the reader’s participation determines meaning. Provocation, inquiry, and disruption are all things Barthes thought text could sway, distort and change meaning.

Through the use of text in this new work, albeit discreetly, I am encouraging a discussion with the viewer, asking them to consider the interplay between words and images. Barthes’ ‘potential for multiple interpretations’ fundamentally describes why I may choose to include a phrase or few words. Simultaneously, I was reading ‘The Dada Almanac’ by Richard Huelsenbeck, a recent find while rummaging through a Cape May, NJ antiques center. I have been a student of the Dadaists for decades, and was familiar with parts of this collection. The contrast between the two texts, as well as how I found connections, fueled my thoughts, and made their way into my work.

As this series developed, with its new name and focus, I continued to fight against some old habits, namely reverting to the pictorial. Besides some of the larger, more prominent imagery that appears to provide focal points, the energy seems to be concentrated at the edges of two parts meeting or overlapping. Lots of intentional tearing, but also some found ones as well. I’m also paying attention to graphic design elements I can repurpose: patterns, borders, elements of the page primarily meant to decorate.

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