Studio Series: Tags

In 2009 I stumbled upon my latest work format. I started to integrate collage into my studio practice in 2005 and by 2007 I was ready to combine it with textiles in a modular format. Previously, I had been working with 2 inch square modules in a framed format but soon enough I was ready to work larger than 2 inches and beyond frames when I discovered an old packet of #6 shipping tags. The tags were ideal because they were portable and had their own built-in hanging device. A little more than two years have passed since I started playing with the tag format and now I've made more than 200 of them. Some are collage-based, some are textiles, and some are both in one way or another. This new body of work is ongoing and my passion for it continues to grow despite the occasional question of where it fits in the art world. Since my March 9 post about my tags, I've organized them into families and the whole thing finally has started to make sense. Here is a family that I united this past autumn:

Blue family © Karen Thiessen 2012

Detail of Blue family © Karen Thiessen 2012