For many years, inspired by Wabi-sabi, the Japanese philosophy that values the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete, I have been photographing the aged and weathered billboards that are indigenous to cities around the world. These photographs of torn and tattered walls serve as the source material of my collages. My process involves making large prints of the photographs and tearing the prints into pieces that I then reconfigure and glue onto canvas. As I build the relationships between the pieces I am also developing what I call “the composition in the chaos.” The narrative is simply about shapes, colors, textures, patterns, and how they juxtapose. I love the trompe l’oeil effect; many of the rips, creases and bubbles are in the photographs but others are real. Various light sources exist within the same space but the eye allows it. For me, making a collage is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle: all of the pieces must fit, but it isn’t complete until the final piece is in its proper place. I hope the result intrigues and delights the viewer.