These character pieces are the result of many years of collecting from sidewalks and streets little bits and pieces of what is discarded, consumed and neglected. Very often they bear the marks of having been tread upon or torn. I delight in the traces left upon them through use and disuse. I am fascinated by what I might find on the ground and so I look and am rewarded. The formal qualities of color, texture, pattern, shape, etc draw me but also the poor plight of these scraps, used, misused and tossed aside. Years pass sometimes before I find a use for a particular scrap, but then it seems to fall into place. Ultimately the personality of each character grows out of what is basically a doodle and collage process. I try as much as possible to maintain a raw and unmediated image, using only a scanner for a camera and without digitally resizing or adjusting individual scraps. The final product you see here is an attempt to capture with light these diminutive specimens.