"Emerging" 19" x 22" Hand carved flashed glass, vitreous paint, silver stain, and enamel.
STATEMENT
Light, color, mark making, realism and abstraction all excite me. I am curious about how time affects things; how objects age through use or misuse, buildings, trees, the body. The challenge of conveying these elements through my art propels me to learn new techniques; and to be open to changing my approach from time to time.
My formative years in art were spent primarily drawing. I have also explored various forms of printmaking, painting, ceramics, blacksmithing and metalsmithing. For 35 years I have worked as designer, fabricator, and conservator in stained glass.
In 2013, I experienced knee and back injuries, which rendered me unable to walk for several months, and kept me from my studio work. As I slowly regained my health and physical abilities, I found glass work to be too cumbersome, both physically and mentally. I returned to my origins - drawing on paper.
What began as a meditation, and a gentle way to get started again in the studio, eventually helped reset my approach to my art making process. The drawings became a way to explore myself, emotionally and physically, with the idea of objectively confronting my aging process. These drawings harkened back to my days as a modern dancer and gymnast, celebrating the expression of my body through gesture.
This personal expression was a reversal of the mostly objective and decorative work I had been creating in stained glass.
In my most recent drawings, I am exploring my friends and relatives. Some of the images begin with a curated photo shoot. In other cases, I use old photos, scanning the images to enlarge them (ranging from 3’ up to life size). By removing background context, I aim to capture the emotional essence of my subjects by giving focus to the physical gesture.
The Hand Carved Figures in Glass are created using “flashed” glass, which is a blown class made of a thin layer of color on top of a base color (Red on clear, blue on clear, red on green, etc.) Hand carving glass is immediate, more like drawing, a refreshing departure from the traditional stained glass process., Without the confines of the lead line, the figures now float in the space, and seem less tangible, speaking to emotional struggles and the fragility of life. These pieces can be displayed in a variety of lights -- ideally in a window with natural light, but also in front of an illuminated wall.