Artist Statement
I have worked to bring my artistic life, my practice as a visual and performance artist, into balance with my professional life as a digital media designer and director of web communication at a small liberal arts university. When I work on design projects I strive to deliver work that meets the needs of the client/audience without sacrificing good design. I find that many websites are inconsistent in applying design principles, resulting in a less meaningful experience for the user. While the message can be conveyed and understood without a care for good design, well-planned information architecture, or sound technical implementation, real pleasure – for the presenter and the receiver – comes when full consideration is given to these elements and they become an integral part of the message.
As a visual artist I have a diverse practice. I create mosaics using glass, ceramic and porcelain tile as well as recycled broken pottery and dinnerware, river pebbles and found objects. I paint with encaustic paints, making some of my own paint from the beeswax from my partner’s beehives. I work with fiber and fabrics, spinning wool, weaving tapestries, embroidering, quilting and sculpting with fabric and fibers. I create musical instruments, sculptural art and functional pieces from gourds grown by family and friends. The connecting thread in my practice, the context I work from, is a deep respect and passion for antiquities, for art and craft tradition, for the mystery of an ancient world. The essence of my praxis is deeply rooted in techniques and methods that are thousands of years old.
I am an interdisciplinary artist examining the transcendent in the light of the connection between the ancient and the contemporary. In this examination of the transcendent I continually look to the past. The past is all that we really can see. The future is not visible to us except as vague, momentary glimpses which we mostly discount. We can only look with any certainty at our history, our ancestors, our heritage – equally tormented and enticed by the fragmented, primeval whispers, the shadowy intimations we stumble upon while looking back across the eons, hunting for things that make sense to us, searching for ways to live richer, fuller lives in the here and now - and for me, ways to make art that embodies a communion between the ancient and the contemporary.
I am intrigued by process. I work with materials of all kinds to create mosaics, sculptures, tapestries, paintings, mixed media and digital art. I make stories with words and images and materials, looking for ways to stir the imagination, to arouse the soul, to inflame the passions, to engage the intellect, to create dialogue. I constantly look to blur the line between art and craft; a line that I see as a historically arbitrary social construction. I believe in questioning the status quo. Every single day.
As an interdisciplinary artist I examine possibilities. I study the connections between art and life, context and concept, inspiration and artifact, design and message. As an interdisciplinary artist I weave together the various parts of my understandings, experiences and involvements into a fabric for my artwork. I spin the threads of my ever-changing awareness of history, sociology, archeology, anthropology, earth science,gender & feminism, transcendence, music, science fiction, politics, mass media, workplace milieu and domestic life into rich material for art.
