Paper stories

I'm no artist. (Don't make me prove it.) I can't paint or draw, but I do like to create simple collages by cutting and ripping things up, so I'm drawn to the work of collage artists who use the two-dimensional form in a more sophisticated way to show movement and tell stories. Boston's Museum of Fine Arts introduced me to the artist and activist Ekua Holmes. Earlier this year, the museum presented an exhibit of her vibrant mixed-media collages created for six children's books, along with sketches, portraits of her community of Roxbury, and a wonderful video interview that ran on a wall screen mounted above the wooden table where she used to make art in her grandmother's kitchen. (Image from Museum of Fine Arts web site.)