Biography
I carry a sketchbook with me everywhere; I'd rather dance than just about anything; I lean left; and closest I can tell, I'm a humanist.
Justice and mercy weigh equally in my heart - a delicate, unquiet balance that keeps me on my toes...
My mother taught me to sew when I was 4. My dad taught me to use powertools when I was 6.
And the story continues...
As an artist and a designer I am equally comfortable in the art studio or the graphic design lab.
I have been a visual artist since high school, a performance artist for half-a-dozen years or so, and a graphic designer since my twenties. I began creating websites in 1999 and am currently the Director, Website and Website Development at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota in Winona, Minnesota, where I also have periodically taught web design and Artscore (an arts appreciation course).
In the studio I work with mosaic, sculpture, women's traditional fiber arts, found object/mixed media, photography (B&W film and digital), encaustic painting and costume/garment design. As a performance artist I work with spoken word and the integration of spoken word and visual art. As a designer I work professionally in digital/interactive (web) design and implementation, as well as producing digital prints from my own photographs.
I love the tension between the very, very old and the very, very new. In my visual arts practice I am fascinated with the idea of taking ancient techniques and forms and presenting them in contemporary ways and settings. The fiber work, mosaic, and encaustic painting parts of my practice are an expression of this fascination. I am particularly interested in how the creative spark, the "ah-ha!" moment of development of motifs, techniques and technologies seems to have happened independently in many places around the world in a time when communication of ideas was limited to relatively short distances. In short, I am intrigued by the idea of Inspiration.
In regard to the more contemporary part of my practice, I love to create with the camera, computer and printer. I have considerable experience with the Adobe Creative Suite (CS5) applications and would rate myself as an advanced user of Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Fireworks. I have worked with Flash, Premiere, Acrobat and InDesign. I have significant experience with CSS, especially in regard to coding for design and presentation, an adequate understanding of the use of Java, and JavaScript, and an introductory understanding of PHP, MySQL, ASP and other various programming languages. I am not a programmer, but rather a designer with a sufficient grasp of the intricacies of programming to create designs that program well.
I believe I bring an interdisciplinary approach to art and design, to learning in general and to life as a whole. I think it is important to recognize the influences that inform – and the distractions that confound – our awareness. As an activist educator I expect my students to examine the world around them and integrate their observations into their art and/or design work. I expect them to be able to discuss the context in which they create work – whether they are studio artists or graphic designers. I believe in taking nothing at face value – all concepts and ideas must be examined; all standards, guidelines and benchmarks questioned. Good design or good art is not just a reiteration of what has come before, but rather a synthesis of the recursive relationship between experience and experimentation, between logic and intuition, between passion and expression.
