Mary Baldwin Collins

Artist’s Statement

My work explores the dynamic tension between chaos and order.

Scientific theory tells us that there can be no life in a state of absolute chaos (the center of the sun, for example) or a state of absolute order (absolute zero is much colder than a block of ice). Life cannot thrive when there is too much order or when there is too much chaos. This is true in everything we are able to experience… in the known physical world, in all organizations, in relationships with one another, in our relationship with ourselves… too much chaos or too much order engenders destruction.

These ideas are explored in my paintings, photographs, assemblage and glasswork.

The gorgeous atomic chaos inherent in molten glass can become a beautiful, calm, stable and useful bowl with the introduction of cooling or reordering of molecules. Similarly, the photographs capture scenes of urban decay…or is it regeneration? The school buildings, civic attempts to support order, are marked by chaos and decay but life is thriving in the corners and the spaces ‘in between’. The assemblage pieces began with my classroom architectural drawings, which were essentially experiments ordering and playing with concepts of space. The board work is built on salvaged Home Depot lumber and incorporates photographs along with an exploration of color, washes and texture.