The only reason I didn’t choose art as a career when deciding on what degree to pursue was that for all the years I’d spent creating and crafting, I’d never found a medium or method or style that was “mine.” It wasn’t until my last year of college when, in the middle of making a vision board for a sorority activity, I realized how much I liked the quality of the colors you find in magazines and began wondering how best to create my own “paintings” with the colors on the glossy pages.
Most of my work during phase one centered around cityscapes, the female form, explorations of color, and experimenting with the nature of the medium itself to see what I could get the little bits of paper to do. I worked primarily on plywood and masonite boards, canvas boards, watercolor paper, and occasionally experimented with adding other media to the mix (i.e. clear resin, found objects)
After selling art on eBay for several years, I opened a brick-and-mortar gallery and gift shop to give myself and other local artists a place to exhibit and connect with the community. But three years in, I found myself so burned out by the business and the pressure to create what sells that I put away the paper squares and threw myself into other creative endeavors.
I didn’t feel the push to create mosaics again until 2024. In the intervening years I legally changed my name, so all phase one works are signed J. Coltharp while all works from 2024 and after are signed J. Owens.
This is an incomplete portfolio from the Phase One years.
Bits Of Paper by Jaye Owens 