The Future Isn’t What It Used To Be
Home is not the past. It is not a place where we were; It is where we are, where we almost are, and where we’re going. It is the present and the future and the work of our lives.
I’ve only ever wanted to be an artist, and now it’s all I do. My house is like a cross between a work in progress and a performance installation.
My husband, John, is my touchstone of certainty. He is essential to my creative output. He provides the physical space and the abstract opportunity which allows me to paint and draw and sculpt. He cuts my designs out of sheets of plywood for my wooden jeweled pieces, as well as installing the hanging mechanism on the larger, heavier works. For 8 months of the year, our living room coffee table is dominated by a Day of the Dead skull in various phases of construction. In the summer, the kitchen and/or garage, as the coolest rooms in the house, are conscripted into service as full on art preparation areas. My work schedule revolves around his work schedule.
I create surreal, symbolic, intuitive images. My methodology consists of reviewing books on mythology, psychology (Jungian), heraldry, alchemy, symbolism, illuminated manuscripts and the history of the Middle Ages, art and current art magazines, pre-historic and Neolithic art, and various cultural folk traditions. I make notes and have several note books of ideas spanning over 10 years. Sometimes I will use a symbolic image as originally encountered; but I often create my own interpretation and synthesis with other images.
I have become fascinated with the traditions, festivals and rituals associated with the wheel of the year; the changing seasons and the moments of transition when the veil between the worlds becomes thin. My work incorporates multiple styles and some unusual mediums: Day of the Dead paintings are acrylic and glitter on canvas; landscapes and animals are occasionally depicted through an overall grid pattern; and hand-cut organic wooden shapes, often of landscapes, painted in acrylic and covered with colorful gems and glass cabochons. I draw in colored pencil, sometimes in combination with oil pastel or acrylic. For many years, I have been painting abstract, luminous landscapes in acrylic, primarily of Yosemite NTPK and the El Portal area.
Griselda and Poundcake have evolved into unique characters with their own enigmatic and poetic story in pictures, with occasionally significant titles. Initially, they started as colored pencil and oil pastel, but have since progressed to multiple layers of acrylic on smooth-gessoed board.
We are the results of our habits and what we do every day. A million possible outcomes exist for everything we do. Like the Knight of Pentacles, I persevere, and make steady progress toward my artistic goals.
Represented by Williams Gallery West