I have been extremely fortunate to have a solid educational background in all of the major artistic media, processes and techniques, thus feeding the professional requirements of being an art educator. I have also had the privilege of visiting the world's great museums, art centers, and world-class art festivals. As an arts administrator, I have been able to meet with and understand the motivations of hundreds of artists. All of this exposure has helped me to forge my own artistic directions and sensibilities.
I am primarily a two-dimensional artist, favoring drawing, painting, torn and cut paper collage, and fabrics and fibers. I am most interested in strong color that is contained by pointillism in drawing. My passion is in taking natural and human-made objects, and placing them in unnatural combinations and juxtapositions…subtle surrealism is my intention. An early influence was in the writing of Bachelard in The Poetics of Space. I enjoy both symmetrical and asymmetrical design, vacillating between the two with each new work.
I love listening, noticing, and appreciating. Anything is a potential source of inspiration: an overheard comment, a phrase in a song or book, a random event or coupling of ideas. These can immediately inspire a new title or thematic direction.
My primary subjects are natural objects that are often dead, decomposing, or disconnected: shells, leaves, flowers, bones, feathers. I enjoy thinking about truth, beauty, goodness…what stories may be told by images, and what symbology they may hold. Creative problem solving and serendipity are my closest friends.
I feel a responsibility to communicate with my audience; often this takes the form of multiple titles for a work, which can stimulate limitless ways of thinking about that work. From that initial stimulation, the rest of the experience with the work is up to the viewer.