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Fabrications
Like the "In Memory" series, these painting are oil on printed fabric. I randomly apply the fabric to the canvas; give it several coats of clear gesso; and then apply the paint, allowing the printed pattern to show through in some areas.
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Possibilities
While I am using pregnancy as the subject matter, a main objective for me is challenging myself in formal qualities of the painting process. I want to incorporate mastery of the craft of painting with inventivness. My desire to is push myself in both of these areas with the results being a beauty that is as profound as the subject matter.
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In Memory
My painting technique for this series involves gluing pieces of patterned fabric to the canvas and applying clear gesso. On this surface, while allowing some of the fabric to remain revealed, I challenge myself to make a beautiful rendition of a domestic object. In these paintings I am examining the push-pull / love-hate relationship that I have with the chores of the household by questioning the sweet nostalgia that I have for the domestic objects of my childhood.
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Impulse Paintings
Previously I thought I needed to talk about the content of my paintings, even while they were being conceived and made. This did not, as hoped, help me to understand my paintings, but instead caused me to shut down some of my creative impulses. I painted what could be explained. I painted academically. I painted what could have been written in a thesis. With maturity as an artist and increased confidence in my painting facility, I found the courage to develop my paintings according to the dictates of my own impulses.
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Collection: Chairs
This is the first of a series of precious little 6 x 6 inch paintings that I am calling my "collection" series.
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Collection: White Weeds
The second in the "collection" series. The subject is: any kind of white flower that was growing on the studio grounds between May 10th and June 10th. It was really fun to go out and spend time searching each day for the perfect "weed" to paint and then to spend time really looking at such simple plants with the intimacy of the artist eye.
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Collection: Spectacles
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Nests
I am a very literal thinker, and so as I am painting often I fail to see what later becomes obvious on the symbolic and metaphoric levels. In starting this series I just had the idea that nests would be interesting subject matter on the level of being beautiful to look at and meditative to paint. Later I would see the connections between all home/domestic art that I create and other metaphors such as the fact that I was painting empty nests as my son was leaving home.
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Portraits
I love painting portraits and invite you to indulge yourself by having your portrait drawn or painted. See my portrait page from the menu on the left for details.
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Compulsively Made
As I was passing through an alley behind an old folks home a hand held mirror, jutting out of a box next to the dumpster, grabbed my eye. I put the box in my car and brought it home. The box, with the name Lillie Foster on the side, contained old compacts, pictures, a broken watch, cheap jewelry, a hair net, and the likes. I pieced together her life... once married, had a dog, no children, now forgotten. I made the work "Lillie Foster" as an homage. That piece started me on this journey of work that seems to swell out of my life, home, and studio.
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The Girls
<p>
Most of this work was made between 1996 and 1998 although I still add to it regularly.</p>
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