Barbara Corso Ide

Perhaps my most dominant archetype is The Student, which is the subject of this collage. From the time I began watching my parents read, and continuing to this day, I have loved learning new things. My world literally opened up the day our World Book Encyclopedias arrived. It was the late 1950’s, and I was in third grade. My teacher, Sister Fabian, was very open to my big idea – sharing my new knowledge in the form of “Reports to the Class.” I took my job very seriously and soon stood in front of the class reading a perfectly copied paragraph about Abraham Lincoln from one of the new volumes. This was quickly followed with another report highlighting George Washington. I have always believed that my teacher, who I’m sure had many decades of experience, recognized that I just might have the makings of a teacher myself. From that early experience of digging around about a topic of interest, I did indeed pursue a career in front of students, a career spanning 42 years, three degrees and multiple certifications including administration.

My ten favorite years of teaching were spent guiding elementary students through independent study projects based on what they wanted to learn. During those years, reference materials transformed from books, vertical files, and encyclopedias to the age of computers and the internet. A new era of research and learning was just fingertips away! Art quilts became a major area of interest after I retired. In 2016 I began a serious inquiry into the elements of art and how to translate ideas/images onto fabric. The exploration of surface design led to the discovery of digital photography collage using a variety of software editing programs and iPad applications. Sitting On Top of the World is a product of this collage method. The background is a combination of two different pictures: one is a scanned image of different pages from antique textbooks, while the other is an image of a section of outdoor carpeting. The World Book is a public domain image, which was isolated and digitally layered onto the background. The seated gentleman with the book is a cropped image of a sculpture that is located on the grounds of the Elk Rapids, MI. library. The little girl sitting with him is a picture of me taken from a family photo featuring my father reading a Christmas story to his three children. And the confident little girl on the left is another cropped family photo of me sitting on the curb with my cousin.

To create the image, I used Picmonkey, Photoshop Elements, Mac Preview photo editor and resizing tool, BeCasso, and Juxtaposer. Commercially Printed by Spoonflower.

Sitting On Top of the World 2022 45.5” X 42” Machine Quilted Cotton Digital Collage NFS Barbara.corso.ide@gmail.com