20 Comments
User's avatar
Jenn's avatar

So beautiful. Too often that voice of hope is ignored. Love all these collages, especially miracles dressed as disasters. And the photo art is really cool, too!

Expand full comment
Duane Toops's avatar

Thank you! Glad you like “miracles…”. I’ve been experimenting with gel plate printing off and on for a few months, and it’s been an absolute disaster ever time I try to use it. I’ve yet to have a successful print. The top half of “miracles…” is one of those ‘failed’ gel plate prints. Sometimes it’s the things that go wrong that turn out to be the most interesting, lol.

Expand full comment
Jenn's avatar

I have wanted to try gel plate printing for so long! I re-use failed prints, too, it’s good that’s mistake can be a positive if you look at it in a different way!

Expand full comment
Duane Toops's avatar

I wasn't prepared for how difficult gel printing is! I just can't seem to get it, lol!

Expand full comment
Jenn's avatar

Oh no, that’s frustrating! I hope you pull a print you love soon. It does look kinda difficult, like there is a bit of a learning curve. Good luck ☺️

Expand full comment
Duane Toops's avatar

It's alright, maybe one day. I know some artists that make it look so easy, but if there's one thing I'm exceptionally good at, it's overthinking everything, lol.

Expand full comment
Jenn's avatar

Yep, me too!

Expand full comment
Victoria SkyDancer's avatar

You can't go wrong with Emily Dickinson. Waiting to see what she inspires.

Expand full comment
Martin Hughes's avatar

There are times I'll walk past a discarded pile of stuff with weeds growing around them. The pile might be at the boundary of someone's property, could be next to their garage or something. And I wonder if the people in the house ever notice the pile. I wonder if anyone else who walks past looks at the pile and considers it, just resting there indefinitely.

I wonder how often the forgotten things go unforgotten by people who simply notice them as they pass by. They are little works of art, discovered collage pieces.

Expand full comment
Duane Toops's avatar

Gorgeous example and a wonderful way of practicing what @Rob Walker definitely describe as the Art of Noticing.

Expand full comment
Elizabeth Grace Martinez's avatar

Maintaining a sense of wonder is the key to having joy

Expand full comment
Duane Toops's avatar

Absolutely!

Expand full comment
Sonia Otero's avatar

These collages with own photographs are very interesting.

Expand full comment
Duane Toops's avatar

Thank you! I really appreciate it!

Expand full comment
Ann Collins's avatar

It's the quiet promise that cuts through the static of all our false pretenses. Something that calls to us in the stillness of making things. That brings us back to joy and peace and playfulness.

Something that survives the rubble with softness and subtlety, waiting to be reclaimed."

Your child self.

I feel like we are all the ages we have ever been--maybe all the ages we will ever be--all at once.

No wonder that feels hard most days.

Expand full comment
Duane Toops's avatar

Yes! Exactly! Carlo Rovelli says that "the difference between the past and the future refers only to our own blurred vision of the world." Nothing escapes the gravitational pull of the present. It is the weight and the wonder we are always tied to. Thanks so much!

Expand full comment
Ann Collins's avatar

Was just reading Carlo Rovelli’s White Holes yesterday—full of mind-bending images of time stopping and running backwards! It is an impossible task to get my head around it. Fun to try though.

Expand full comment
Duane Toops's avatar

I know what you mean! White Holes was a struggle for me. I felt like I comprehended so little of it. I think I'll need to reread it a few times, and even then I'm not sure I'll get it, lol.

Expand full comment
Ann Collins's avatar

Sometimes a single nugget is enough to push my imagination to someplace good. Time running backwards just undoes me.

Expand full comment
Duane Toops's avatar

So good! Love his work. I think I'll add it to my reread list this year.

Expand full comment