Zelda Zinn

Express Marks

2010 - 2011
Enamored of the security envelopes that brought my bills, I began collecting and drawing them. Each new pattern discovered felt like a gift, and I guarded it carefully for future use. Seeing these letters as free art supplies, I amassed a pile of them. I decided to tear them up and reassemble them in collage form. Eventually, I found myself working with intertwining branch shapes. Looking back, I see that I must have been influenced by my Persian rug, a wonderful tree of life, filled with birds, leaves, and flowers. Very little of its space was unadorned.

 In my own collages, I liked the way in which the branching patterns overlapped, creating interlocking shapes. Since the tree shapes originated on opposite sides of the paper, one was always upside down. I was constantly rotating the piece to look at it from above and below. Like many rugs, it did not have a “right side” orientation. Since these pictures are created piece by piece, the final product is always a surprise, the result of many small decisions, kind of like life. As in much of my work, I enjoy making the aesthetic choices in the moment, while leaving the outcome to chance.