A Sunday Treat Courtesy of Ms Shelley Brown of Baltimore

Shelley Brown and I have been LinkedIn and Facebook friends for several years. Somewhere along the line, she started writing what she called quirky little stories about her life, and built a pretty decent following over in the Lumpy Kingdom (LI) and later here on beBee.

This, of course, was back in the day before people started making decisions on other people based on their political leaning.

Shelley published a few dozen of these stories, many of which I happily reposted.

Shelley is also one of a relatively few social media friends whom I have met in person. She and her partner Mark (good guy,  also a Brown), came to Buffalo for a visit and we all met up for lunch and had a great old time.

Shortly after that, Shelley and Mark moved from Chicago to Baltimore and Shelley began to study mindfulness, with an eye to being able to help people develop their own mindful behaviour.

In the meantime, she transitioned from storytelling with words to storytelling with images and began a series of something she calls Quick Kitchen Counter collages, which she started posting on Facebook and Instagram.

I fell in love with these right from the get go, because I saw the real art that was going on in them, and thought, wow, she’s going to have a hell of a collection of these in no time.

Sure enough she does, and recently she has started making, showing and selling prints of these amazing little visual stories, as seen here in this post.

Last week I told her I wanted to do a piece on these, so she sent me a bio and some samples to show everyone. I think they are fabulous. Hope you do too. (two more art the bottom)

Shelley Brown, Collage Artiste Extraordinaire

Growing up as an odd, chubby, artsy child in the late 60s and early 70s, I aspired to become Barbie, a Stewardess or a Playboy Bunny.

With my untreated addiction to candy, paper dolls, Vogue & House Beautiful magazines as well as Colorforms, I lived for anything to take me away into a fantasy world of pointy breasted, high-fashion, feminine whimsy.

Later on in life, after my 19th nervous breakdown in the corporate world, I got off the rollercoaster train-wreck created by my own thoughts and returned to my artistic roots reflecting my childhood passions.

My collages are quirky little, ‘left of center’ stories; each piece appears to be one cohesive image but upon closer inspection, like a little drop down the “rabbit hole”, the collective components find their way together to create a delicious, maybe even a little disorienting, marriage of vintage and modern composition.

The collages come together organically like “Improv Comedy”. I never know what I am going to create.  I start in search of a photo, my ‘Muse’ and then build from there.  I religiously ‘Collage Bomb’ my work with animals, especially dogs.

My mission is to delight.  Just like life, with collage, anything can happen. Mostly, the collection is grounded in joy.

Instagram: @theglueisdrying

Facebook: @thegueisdrying (I really don't put all my stuff here)

Email: theglueisdrying@gmail.com