ABOUT/STATEMENT
ABOUT
I am an artist who has been doing some form of art since I could hold a crayon. I graduated from art school at SUNY Purchase, where drawing the human body was my primary focus. I also explored painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and woodworking, and in a baptism-by-fire experience, initiated an experimental film animation class, an interest I had had since high school.
Since SUNY Purchase, I have sold my work, exhibited in solo and group shows, and had two pieces published in a book. I have been a vendor at juried fine art and craft and quilt shows, done demonstrations, lectured, and participated in panel discussions. As an art teacher, I have taught in-person and virtually in public and private schools, museums and other institutions.
I maintain my interest in figurative drawing along with a more abstract approach in painting and other media. I also address personal, political subjects, some of which are reflected in my clay work, and some of which can be seen as well on SplitLeaf.info. I have another sculptural, political work in progress that I will add to this site upon completion. I believe strongly in the power of visual and performing art to serve a function beyond, or in addition to, beauty, observation, and emotional expression. It is often these political pieces that are most meaningful to me.
STATEMENT
I am riveted by transformations, all kinds, and this has informed much of my work. For example, there is the kind of transformation that happens when you hold a blank piece of paper, and how, with pencil or India ink, you can be transform it into a story of beauty, pain, structure or elegance.
There are transformations that take place by cutting pieces of painted and printed paper and giving them new visual meaning in a collage. There is a transformation that takes place, as well, when working with disperse dyes that stubbornly refuse to reveal their true colors until heat is used to permeate each red and blue and violet.
The metamorphosis that happens with clay is perhaps the most remarkable to me. First, with your fingers and a few tools, you take this soft, pliable earth and shape it just so. It does not stay pliant forever, though, so learning to work with its constantly changing state is a challenge I am starting to explore. The clay then gets fired, then glazed, then fired again, resulting in a hard but fragile object.
I can take this transformation one step further: by digitally manipulating a photograph of the clay piece (or any work, for that matter) and getting it printed onto a piece of fabric. I am utterly transfixed by all of these changes and love to discover new solutions, keeping me entertained and surprised…with the ultimate goal of watching the transformation that takes place internally, and finally, externally (even politically), in a piece of art, whatever the media.