​

What is it about clouds that capture our attention?… As children we see amorphic vision wrought to life in magical shapes of our choosing…. The simple family farmer in early times and indigenous cultures which far preceded them,  shared the same hope as they looked to the clouds for signs of rain, bringing survival.  

 

Key Contemporary Painters such as  Georgia O’Keeffe’s (“Cloudscapes” 1965) and Renee Magrite (“Le Pain Quotidien” 1942) may come to mind ….

 

Yet for Collins clouds seem more a cross between the views of a child and the understanding depth of painter John Constable (1822) “who called clouds the chief organ of sentiment in any landscape.” 

 

Collins takes this understanding further, allowing the clouds to be the key metaphorical mirror to how our lives change on a daily basis, day by day, moment by moment.  If we see our life as the clouds, we do not grasp on to the way things are.. rather we embrace change as the norm.

​

By choosing a triptych of three different square zones as the background of her canvas in this series Collins takes this further… the first heavily layered bunches of historical pages that layered so deeply they resemble the powerful caverns and mountain like caresses of a cloud mass.  The second, is a pure white, covering the pages completely, blinding us for the moment and surrounding us in calm like fog.  The third layer allows the historical pages to peek through, the rising mist that allows us to see ahead…. Each a contrast, beauty and shift.  Our lives are a reflection of the changing clouds, and we can choose to embrace this, through the eyes of a child, and find the most wondrous creations.