Volcano Arts : The Muse

Dale lives and works in her studio in New Zealand. Like many of the artists featured in The Muse she is comfortable with many media. She works in collage and assemblage and she also is a writer. Dale self-published a poem about turning 50 called The Second Half (ISBN 0-9583372-4-1). One of her recent projects is a book called Assemblage Art. Each book is hand made and unique (ISBN 0-9583372-2-5).

This work was created for a millennium exhibition held in France in January, 2000.

Mixed Media Assemblage
gold foil, harakeke paper, piano hammer, New Zealand one cent coin, typewriter key, mathematical formulae.
210 X 140 mm

Un, deux, trois. European colours for countdown to the year 2000 - too big a change.
Is that a big hammer for hitting a small problem?
Or does it look like a brave little boat sailing to the unknown?

Click image for larger look

Dance till they drop you
Rejoice till you die

Not a bad little philosophy to live by. Apart from that "they" - the implication of some conscious entities out to get you. Vengeful gods waving scythes, throwing dice, all that. Nah, just the Second Law of Entropy. We all succumb eventually, rejoin the carbon cycle, become a clump of daisies and a stir of mud. It's O.K. More than O.K. While it lasts it's bloody wonderful.

Dale Copeland, aged 56. Artist in New Zealand. What's there to say? Short and scruffy, smiling so the eyes disappear. Op Shop clothes, surrounded by a 30-year collection of junk (treasure), smiling. The works are almost always images of change, decay, loss. But in the midst a manic energy putting together treasures, finding meaning in detritus, smiling.

The studio of Dale Copeland can be found at Puniho, on Surf Highway near Okato, in Taranaki, New Zealand