Storm of the i: An Artobiography 
What reviewers are saying
  
        "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

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About Fleurotica:

      Philip Yenawine, former Director of Education at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, described Fleurotica (shown in the book) as "the meeting ground of Georgia O'Keefe, Erma Bombeck and Linda Lovelace-a celebration of beauty, humor and sensuality."

     French art critic José Pierre said about Fleurotica:  "It is secretly and delightfully naughty. Done with such playfulness, elegance and subtlety that by the time the viewer knows what they are looking at they are already in on the joke."

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     "Brilliant and touching. Tina Collen's memoir brought tears to my eyes. I was totally engrossed from the first moment I started reading to the very last period. I followed every word like it was a psychological  thriller and experienced her epiphany as if it were my own."

	—Nancy Spanier, Artistic Director, Performance Inventions, Sireuil, France

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     "Artists and writers are often the ones forging the path for the rest of us. It's inspirational to see Collen set down her brush and pick up a pen and write her life with equal mastery. As the baby boomers enter their most reflective decades, watch for Artobiography to become an emerging trend."

	—Patricia Aburdene, author of Megatrends 2010, co-author of Megatrends,
	    #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for 2 years

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     "Marvelous ... warm, clever, lively and great to look at. It's packed with fascinating insights. I started putting little yellow Post-its on all the things I really liked.There were so many I ran out."       

	—Ted Conover, Pulitzer Prize finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award winner

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     "Behind creativity there is often a struggle trying to work its way out and this is the story of that struggle. Unlike artists who feed their pain, in Storm of the i, Tina Collen uses her talent to understand and ameliorate it. Along the way, she creates a genre that is overflowing with quirky inventiveness-foldout paintings and photographs, diecuts, an omniscient pop-up and even a mildly scandalous lift-up flap. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it."

	—Lena Torslow Hansen, Museum Art Books

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     "The most unusual thing about this remarkable memoir is that it's not about the author-it's about the reader."   

	—Marilyn Van Derbur, Award winning author, motivational speaker, 
	    Miss America 1958

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     "An emotional tour de force-hard to believe this is her first book. It's a10 in creativity, art, and revelation. Now that the inner storm has been channeled, I see Artobiography workshops on the horizon."

	—Dr. Judith Briles, award-winning, best-selling author of 26 books,
	    including The Confidence Factor

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     "An exuberant and engaging exploration, a collection of touching and humorous personal stories that are woven seamlessly together. Though the author obviously delights in tweaking the nose of propriety, her message is authentic. Using little psychological or spiritual jargon, it has instead the power of an ordinary voice speaking truth."

	—Evi Bassoff, psychologist, author of Mothering Ourselves, Mothers and Daughters, 	                and Cherishing Our Daughters

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"I cried a lot."  —Neil Galland, a grown man

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"Griffin & Sabine meets Eat, Pray, Love."

	—Karen Mayer, Penguin Books

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"Dear Ms. Collen,  you had a more than capacity crowd hanging on your every word during your talk. I could only stand in the doorway. The slides were great and so were you. Congratulations on your book. It is lovely and touching."
 
Kent Hudson Reed
Director

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