I sold my "Giving Tree" collage to a local law office (they sent a buyer to CWC to purchase artwork to decorate their new offices, and they purchased several pieces by various artists) and was asked to write an "artist's statement" about myself and/or the piece. This is what I wrote:
Title: The Giving Tree
Artist: Kimberly Appelcline
Materials: paper collage of book pages tinted with watercolor paint, watercolor pastel, oil pastel, glitter, and ink
Kimberly Appelcline is a formerly avid reader and writer who worked as a professional in the book publishing field before health concerns thwarted her in these pursuits. To express the importance of words in her life, and their current inaccessibility, she frequently uses printed text in her artwork as a purely visual element, divorcing it from its purpose as a vehicle of linguistic communication.
This work, titled “The Giving Tree,” is a multi-layered self-portrait, with the artist being represented simultaneously by the small vulnerable figure lying on the ground, the tree that shelters her, the roots that extend into the ground for support, and the expansiveness of the sky. Every one of us can be vulnerable, strong, grounded, open, and protective—all at the same time.
