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Tell us about yourself & how you became an artist
I grew up in Kansas with a family who liked to make things. My parents were musicians and I played many instruments from a young age. Sewing and fiber arts were my passion although like many kids who come from creative families, I also did a lot of painting and drawing. In high school, undergrad and grad school, I focused on 2D art – painting, drawing and printmaking. After more than 30 years of being a painter, I have recently returned to working in fabric, employing a variety of textiles as painting materials.
What is your art addressing? What kind of message do you want to convey through your art?
My work is about relationships – between people, objects, ideas – and how your perception changes when you look at things from another angle or through different elements. I use transparent and opaque veils to hide shapes, transform colors and connect different areas of a piece to one another, employing the same spatial awareness and strategic thinking involved in a game of checkers.
What kind of emotions do you want to stir in your audience?
Happiness, contemplativeness, playfulness.
What is your creative process?
Stream of conscious, working out ideas and figuring out a strategy, building up focus, discovering relationships and gleaning something new from disparate elements.
3 words to describe yourself as an artist
Curious, problem solver, renovator.
3 words to describe your art
Colorful, layered, non-figurative.
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Your go-to music for when you're working?
Music is important to me and I listen all day while I’m in the studio. I find there are many formal similarities between what I listen to and my work. My current favorites include the “Not Our First Goat Rodeo” album, Béla Fleck, Dave Stamey, Paul Schoenberg’s Café Music, Henry Belafonte, techno swing and folk/bluegrass. I like to mix it up but gravitate towards anything with a faster tempo.
Favorite movie or show?
Most things on PBS – dramas, mysteries, documentaries. British detective shows and anything Jane Austen. Project Runway and home design shows.
Favorite color?
I don’t have one color I like the best but I tend to gravitate towards a group of colors that vibrate with a certain energy like red, orange, yellow and turquoise, often using a deep plum as a dark or neutral. Of course as soon as I say that, I will find myself using colors that are completely different.
Do you have a routine or ritual for when you're working?
I don’t think too hard when I start something. I like to begin with actions and marks that are chaotic or random and that may be a subconscious reaction to something I’ve recently experienced. As I work, I seek to turn this chaotic start into something more rational, that makes sense to me, with relationships and juxtapositions that I recognize and can even learn from.
Where / When / How do you get inspired?
I put on some good music. I ignore what I have to do and do what I really want to do instead which eventually spirals back to what I needed to do in the first place. I periodically return to old work that I never finished to see if I am able to find a solution after a bit of time has passed, applying new ideas.
What makes you happy?
Color, beautiful weather, people working together in a constructive way and with a shared purpose, my kids and family.
What impact does living in New York have on you?
I feel comfortable with the pace of the city. It keeps me going and even though I don’t take advantage of everything, I know it’s there if I need it. I’m originally from Kansas. I like to go back often because I strongly identify with those roots, however, after 30+ years of living in Brooklyn, it always feels good to come back to New York which is now home.
How has your art changed throughout your career?
Yes. I spent a lot of time in figure painting class when I was a student. After a while, the figurative elements didn’t seem important to me and I turned to making paintings with layers of anatomy illustrations, mathematical diagrams and geometric spiritual symbols. Eventually I kept only the geometric parts and my work became what I refer to as purely non-figurative.
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