The Composition of Composition is titled as a tautological quip, not a braggadocious superlative. Though it sounds a bit like “The Show of Shows”, what I was trying to demonstrate was what my compositions were composed of. In juxtaposing these disparate molecular compositions, I was striving to contrast or compare materials in a way that would inform and hopefully, fascinate the viewer. The color I was trying to achieve was as if I had a color knob that I could turn and make my earlier earth-tones blush with color. I joke with people about how I finished each piece by sprinkling MSG on my drab earth-tones as a color enhancer. All kidding aside, my intention was to use Nature’s palette as my own, only intensifying the colors that were already infused in the object I found. The green/beige, mottled agate I found in a stream bed in Valley Forge, I would intensify like a caricature of itself. It was still a rock, but now more so! I would repeat this process with every object to make for a more pungent version of my earlier studies. I would re-work each object to balance the composition, while never losing sight of the original properties that attracted me in the first place. Only now I was “painting” with rocks and wood. And as any good stone mason will tell you – the bigger and more select your pile of rocks, the better your wall will be. When I was stumped for an extremely specific color and shape, I was not above manufacturing one with the needed properties rather than flying to Patagonia for the exact blue I was looking for. So, I played the part of nature and made rocks when I had to. The more convincing the better.