BREEZES III

Breezes I through V

Are the objects laundry, curtains blown in a window or merely windblown scrap? The contorted shapes are full of motion and conflict, unanchored. What propels them?

BREEZES II (RT VIEW)

BREEZES II

BREEZES

ALASKAN QUARTET

Alaska--mammoth and majestic mountains, unlimited clear water, dense gnarly forests, ancient glaciers.

This is a place of power and serenity, fragility and eternity. Dichotomy is everywhere. There is a silence so intense minus the ambient noises of cities and suburbs and yet raucous with the sounds of the earth trembling with unseen chasms, the glaciers shuddering, cracking and breaking; water gushing, crashing and burbling; forests alive with wind and animal sounds.

I’ve illustrated these contrasts with durable substrates, flexible encaustic medium and fragile hand made papers also positioning color against the lack of it and dark against light like the land which huddles in the dark of winter and explodes with light in summer.

DREAM KEEPERS

Fragile, ethereal vessels to try to hold the most unique part of ourself.

STRATA

With Strata, I examine surface and substrait. Not unlike the upheavals of land in the west. Where land masses collide and lift to expose even more beauty beneath the surface and where the bones of "the old ones" harden and nourish the earth with history and beauty.

BENEATH THE SURFACE

My exploration consists of pushing my medium, encaustic, to its limitations into 3 dimensional work. By freeing the medium from the surface, it becomes more fragile and more like the natural way things disintegrate--losing external skins to expose their structures.
The white fabric shapes support and soar creating tension and evoking the skeletal remains of a plant or animal while the delicate paper is reminiscent of fibrous membranes and more static.
In recent pieces I have been interested in using my art to encourage the viewer to look into, around, under and through. Without the use of color, I feel I’ve been more successful with this piece in exploring the capabilities of the material and the object of looking beyond what would normally be the surface.

JUST HAVE FUN

'JUST HAVE FUN' derived from an attempt to create a piece of encaustic that defied gravity. I admonished myself to not plan so much to have FUN. Using the materials from the failed piece, it became something else and successful.

Tree Pod

Using an unusual gourd, I added the encaustic medium and paint. The piece is a tabletop work illustrating the gourd as encapsulating new life.

SPILLWAY

CELESTIAL FRAGMENTS

STRANGE FRUIT

Designed for "Please Touch Again" exhibit at Tohono Chul Park Gallery, the piece incorporates many tactile surfaces. It is meant to stimulate even without seeing--by touching.

SHARDS

With these works I’ve used the encaustic medium, an ancient wax process to carve, inscribe, build up and color. Its flexibility is both earthy and otherworldly. It allows me to connect geology, erosions, water and plant life into sculptural and collage based pieces. My work is process based. I discover through the process of creating.

WHITEWORK

I have always been drawn to white on white work. “Whitework” celebrates (bows to) the handwork of women. The women who embroidered, crocheted and made lace. The piece references these types of work with its subtle play of pattern--built up and carved into the wax; colored minimally with creamy tones.

RED DOT

“Red Dot” encourages the viewer to look within the irregular surface folds playfully. To move the eye over the surface, to look close or to stand back. Are the “dots” on the surface or below?

MOVING TO THE EDGE

“Moving to the Edge” explores the pattern’s disengagement from the whole, submerged but moving, perhaps not wanting to belong, perhaps desiring to be free.

PERFORATIONS I

PERFORATIONS III

PERFORATIONS II

With the “Perforations” series I’ve played with the same pattern. I encourage the viewer to explore what you see & what you think you see as though sometimes out of the corner of your eye-- beneath mist--underneath. The images recede and come forward. They encourage you to look beyond the surface, the red tones, ethereal- jewel-like, the earth tones provoke with more under their hide-like exteriors.