This is a test.

I will exhibit 52 dated mixed-media collages created week by week throughout 2018 using headlines and images from The New York Times. Displayed in monthly groupings and chronological order, the works invite visitors to walk through that year’s political and social events as they unfolded. They form the first chapter of my ten-year visual archive, From Ego to Essence: History, Healing, and Our Human Story. The scale and week-by-week structure make the collection an unusual way to encounter recent history through both the published news and an artist’s response to living through it.

The exhibition will be at Kress Contemporary in Ybor City from February 11 through March 19, 2027, across two third-floor galleries and an adjoining corner exhibition space. Visitors will be able to move through the collection at their own pace. Beside each work, a QR code will lead to a brief entry connecting that piece and its 2018 context with news from the corresponding week in 2026. Each entry will include two short paragraphs and a small selection of news clippings. The wall labels will remain simple, allowing visitors to engage first with the art and then explore the historical connections on their phones.

I plan to be present for February’s free Third Thursday open house, held during Tampa Art Week, to speak with visitors and hear their perspectives. I hope to attract Tampa Bay residents and visitors interested in collage and mixed-media art, journalism, recent history, and civic conversation. The exhibition can engage people who remember experiencing 2018 as well as younger visitors encountering that year through the archive.

I anticipate more than 100 visitors over the full exhibition run, based on Third Thursday attendance, the Tampa Art Week timing, my own invitations, and promotion through my website, social media, and arts-community networks. I hope the experience prompts visitors to consider the patterns connecting past and present—and to ask how we move forward from where we are now.