Janet Ruhe-Schoen has been making collages since childhood, as a form of visual poetry. She became a Violeta Parra fan while living in Chile during the 1980s. Violeta is an ever-living presence in Chile. Recording a vocal in a Chilean studio, Ruhe-Schoen noticed colorful, small primitive paintings on the baseboards and learned they were by Violeta, who had occupied the building and hosted peñas (folk cabarets) there, years before. The collage Violeta is part of a series, My Literary Icons, which includes Pablo Neruda, Flora Tristan, and others.