About the Author

Tina Collen has been an artist all her life. Educated in graphic design at Pratt Institute, she has designed toys for Mattel and made many other entrepreneurial forays into the commercial world. Her artwork has been exhibited in Paris, Barcelona, Frankfurt and on a year-long tour of museums throughout Germany. In New York City it was shown at The PhotoForum on 5th Avenue and at The Erotics Gallery in SoHo. She lives in Boulder, Colorado by way of Brooklyn, Los Angeles and Aspen.

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ENDORSEMENTS

Storm of the i: An Artobiography

What reviewers are saying

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“Tina Collen has created a rare masterpiece of memoir brimming with wit, wisdom and beauty. Using the languages of both word and image her vibrant inner journey is transmitted on dual wavelengths. The resulting synthesis is bold, authentic, fanciful, and free … a reminder of the untamed world of possibility that lies within every human heart. This book is a jewel.”

—Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School and New York Times best-selling author

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“Powerful. This is a poignant and gripping Rorschach test of a book. Smart, funny and deep, it is filled with wonderful art and the wisdom of a truly original mind.”

—Joan Holt, Editor-in-Chief, Metropolitan Museum of Art Magazine,1979-2005

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“A reminder, vivid and visual, that the parent-child bond is the bedrock on which lives are built.”

—Stewart Oksenhorn, Aspen Times

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“Not only exquisite, but Intensely engaging, inspiring and funny.”

—Amory Lovins, One of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, 2009

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“Storm of the i is extraordinary—it’s inventive, beautiful and brave. I’ve been in the book business for thirty years and have seen a lot of books, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”

—David Bolduc, owner, Boulder Bookstore

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“A vivid portrait of transforming pain into art and art into revelation.”

—Kirkus

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“This book is a fabulous hybrid, a memoir that’s alive with foldouts, paintings, drawings and a surprising lift-up flap. Beneath the playfulness, however, lies the story of an artist trying to understand her father’s lifelong anger towards her. At the pinnacle of her career, an exhibition of her work in Paris, Tina Collen finds herself inexplicably weeping. It takes courage to probe a father’s lifelong rejection, but Collen has wonderful tools: her humor, memories and the trail of art she created. I discovered Collen through her Fleurotica collages. At first glance, I thought I was looking at lush paintings of wildflowers, but on closer examination, I was in the world of the Kama Sutra. Based on the idea that flowers are simply sex organs, Collen created her wildflowers from risqué magazine scraps. She took something forbidden and transformed it into something witty, beautiful and acceptable. “In Storm of the i, she takes a heartbreaking story and transforms it into something witty, beautiful-and unforgettable.”

—Sara Davidson, New York Times best-selling author