This body of work is a collaboration between the artists Stephanie Barenz and Kelda Martensen. They both attended Washington University in St. Louis for graduate school, which is where they met and formed a friendship.

Their work had several conceptual and formal elements in common. These include the themes of journeying, shifting definitions of home, and the relationship one has to their neighborhood. Both also have strong backgrounds in printmaking that merge the process with collage, drafting and painting.

This past year both artists moved from St. Louis back to where they were raised and spent time traveling in the U.S. The collaboration was a way for the artists to visually "share stories" from their experiences. The work finds poetry in the snapshots of old neighborhoods and the fragmented memories from one's travels.

Both artists view collage not only as a technique but a worldview, as Martensen *writes, "…memories, dreams and observations overlap and coexist on the same plane -- blurring the distinctions between our natural, social, political and imagined worlds."
*www.keldamartensen.com