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I had no idea what aqua-gami was or meant. But off I went to the Baton Rouge Gallery to be enlightened by the work of artist Judi Betts. Judy’s postcard at the gallery did not explain the term aqua-gami either so after returning home, I went online in search of the definition. Alas, on her Web site she says, "Inspiration for the "aqua-gami" collage is a term I (Betts) coined while creating these works that came from my admiration for morning glories, my fondness for Japanese paper folding and my love of traditional watercolor. I felt that combining the three would be interesting and hopefully have the force of Matisse's paper cut outs."

Betts continues with, "'Good Morning' is a complex watercolor collage, in which I've used the tradition of painting on paper and added the tactile aspects of Japanese origami. The shapes are individually designed, folded and organized so there is volume with a minimum of mass. Circles and curves provide visual bounce and the three-dimensional form gives an added pleasure. Seeing masses of flowers, ebbing and flowing in the morning sun, gave me the ideas for the painting and the title."

I did not see "Good Morning," but Betts has approximately 15 or so rather large pieces in her “aqua-gami” collection. My favorite was either the “Two Frogs” and “White Elephant Parade” or the two that had the fish theme going on; one of those entitled “Carnival” and one “Bouillabaisse”. I’m glad that I found the definition of "aqua-gami" on Judi’s Web site, because, the only way that I would have been able to describe it is by color, shapes and title, still not knowing exactly what they were.

“Two Frogs” had great color of mint julep or key lime pie, along with sage and lavender cutouts of palm branches. In the middle right I spotted a white frog, and a blue frog on the bottom left. Colorful orange, fuchsia, red, yellow and hot pink paper petal cutouts made whimsical flowers, and folded paper butterflies, I think, fluttered all around in colorful paper swirl cutouts. In the very bottom center (I guess on the ocean floor) was some little black strange creature or something. Very interesting.

"White Elephant Parade" is a very whimsical colorful elephant parade. There are brightly folded paper elephants posed on boxes. These are made elementary in the same fashion of folding a paper airplane. Then there are many cutout elephants parading. Some are solid white and some are colorful stripes. Some rows of elephants are parading to the right and some rows are parading to the left, with magical cutout colored balls bouncing all overhead and throughout the background is water-colored, cylinder-tunnel-like type rows. (Could this be the circus tent?) Well your guess is as good as mine. I think the interpretation is in the eye of the beholder.

This is a colorful exhibit that hangs well and you will enjoy the outing to City Park. The exhibit hangs through March 1. Go see for yourself, and link up with me and let me know of the really cool exhibits that are hanging around town you are running into.

Happy Painting!