I was one of those kids who started drawing at a very early age.  That led to a childhood full of sketchpads, coloring books, paper dolls, paint-by-numbers kits, sewing, knitting, and art classes.  If there was something to be made by hand, I wanted to learn how to do it.  My strong and continued interest in art eventually led to my acceptance to art school in New York City.

 Making art is an important aspect of a person’s life journey, a pathway towards fulfillment of one’s purpose, a way to be happy.  Creating can be done as a spiritual practice, whether it’s growing food, or making clothing, shelter, or art.  It can also make a statement about one’s beliefs; an expression of how one feels about the world.  Moving forward with ideas and pushing against one’s comfortable boundaries about what art is and how it’s made is how change and growth happen. 

My current work is based on 15 years of studying flowers and plants.  I work in series, as a way to study a subject in depth.  I am interested in shaping flower images into new forms that embody the characteristics of the original.   Repetition is one way to achieve this outcome.  

The subject of flowers in my work has grown from austerely painted “portraits” of individual flowers to organically composed grid paintings of groups of flowers, to three-dimensional mixed media pieces.  An awareness of the geometry involved in their structure has opened up new possibilities for exploration.  Most of the pieces, whether 2 or 3 dimensions, begin with a base coat of indigo.  This color represents the earth, water, and the night sky, and inspires me to grow something on top of it.

 The idea is to create a unique work of art that begins as a flower shape, and then transform it into something new, by re-imagining all its parts.  Sometimes I envisage artwork that will be inside a space ship far in the future, when all of earth’s vegetation is gone, and what humans are left with is art made before the earth was spoiled.  This premise helps me to answer questions about what is essential to a flower, what is the idea behind it all. 
 
I use oil and acrylic paints, and easy to find materials.  Working with paper, modeling paste, nails, q-tips, seeds, beads, etc., reintroduced play into my work.  The arts and crafts, and sewing projects I did as a kid gave me so much joy. There is a simple and deep satisfaction in rediscovering making things from what’s at hand and readily available.  And by reusing materials, I can give them a new sense of purpose and save them from the trash bin.  Every action a person makes, affects the world in some way.  My hope is that my art adds something positive to the culture we live in.

ARTIST STATEMENT