Winter, 2021

Initiated by Kate Russell Henry, I joined 14 other women in a collaborative sewing project called “This Too Shall Pass.” Everyone who participated is an Surface Design Association member. It had been in the works well over a year, passed from person to person with each bringing in her own worked upon patch, plus adding to others (if she wanted to). No rules to speak of other than size parameters (roughly 5” x 7”) and jotting down materials you used. I was # 15... so many hard acts to follow!

Fall, 2014

Making baskets has come out of a need to bring organization into my sometimes chaotic life. I want storage that is jolly, colorful, and not too hard to build. The paper, silk, and yarns (often "tailings" or leftovers, precious scraps from collages) used are all hand painted, dyed, or embellished in some way. Cooked organic cornstarch and water make the glue used to hold them together and they are shaped and dried on a form.

Summer, 2014

statement for summer exhibit, ocean...

My grandchild is coming, a creature from the deep. A mostly silent world, language of water. She brings a shell to her ear. Small fish dart ahead. Slow dance and reach to the warm walls of her sea cave. A child from the deep who will soon see the light of day.

August 13, 2011

What would happen if I actually set out to do a painting or two or ten that I know I could paint, that I know would be fine, instead of this constant putting off, going around the picture I want to do? Side stepping with experimentation. Experimenting is my creative procrastination only it's not creative anymore, it's simply evasion.

Winter 2007

The best part of working with Shira Singer and Leanne Nickon has been the companionable experimenting, discovering new ways of playing with tried and true techniques in coloring cloth.

There's a letting go of expectations for great artistic results and of most self-judgement, although occasionally the phrase "pig's breakfast" does enter my mind.  The process of experimenting with resist techniques is endlessly fascinating and I enjoy the constant element of surprise.  One can never entirely predict what one will end up with.

September 1, 2006

At the end of a small stretch of time camping out on North Twinnic...

Why is it always surprising to me that I can't tell if I like a picture or what I feel about a picture when I've just finished it?  Is it that the picture hasn't settled?  or me?  Today feels like a gift.  Perhaps it takes two days of thrashing to get something of this peace.  The last two days have been hard, but I've been doing a lot of looking all along.  It's so still today. So far, other than that little zephyr when I first started.  I have more courage today, the day of departure.

 Spring, 2005

I work in batik and collage, reinterpreting ancient primary shapes - variations of circles, squares, and rectangles that occasionally incorporate calligraphic forms.   These pictures are made with hand painted and dyed mulberry paper, hot wax, crayons, glue, silk and materials from nature.

I experiment with many layers exploring whatever it is that each day brings, whether it be a range of emotions, events or dreams, the blossoming of new ideas (or ideas I think are new), or the turning of the seasons and nature's full engagement of the senses.  Some layers are composed of nothing but the sheer joy of interacting with the materials.

When combining batik and collage, much can be hidden or revealed in the interplay of opaque and transparent elements.

The artist and teacher Robert Henri states in his book The Art Spirit (1923): "The brush stroke at the moment of contact carries inevitably the exact state of being of the artist at that exact moment in the work"

 Resist

A word about resist... This technique describes the application on paper or fabric of a substance (hot wax, water-based resist, or gutta are examples) that literally resists (blocks out) the paint or dye in a given specific area. Among the various choices of resist, I favor hot wax, which is painted onto silk or paper, alternately with watercolors, dyes, and/or acrylics, but crayons are a close second.

Stars

Built of paper mache, covered with hand-painted and decorated paper, in all sizes and shapes for all seasons and events.