The Art of Healing Gallery
About A Sense of Purpose
I began working in wax 18 years ago. I had started out carving stone, and then worked in clay.
As my visual language began to change, I found that I was asking the clay to say things that were
literally not possible. I had been familiar with microcrystalline wax from plaster casting. I found
an attunement with the organic fluidity inherent in the wax, and the malleable subtleties of its
surface. I melt the wax down to the liquid state, and build a simple infrastructure of hot wax,
fabric, and dirt within a basket or found object.
I then dip fabric in the hot wax and begin a process of wrapping and pouring, defining shapes as I build up the layers, finishing with the addition of color to further define the symbolism. I add reeds, lace, metal balls, and all sorts of found objects to the piece as it evolves. Gauze, dried flowers, silver trays, potting soil and straw are some of my favorite materials.
The current palette is made up of pinks and greens with a touch of aluminum, copper, gold and blue. These colors are applied to the hardened wax, fabric wrappings, wax soaked dirt. These effervesant colors shine in juxtaposition to the organic materials, the woven grasses and soil, combined elements of pure and clean vs muddy and dark that represent the very essence of the piece. Color can be transformative in its effect on the viewer.
It is a very physical process of making work, combining textural opposites, playing with concepts of absorption versus reflection, beautiful and ugly, dark and light. I translate the unconscious world of feelings and yearnings, akin to keeping a journal. My palette changes as the emotional landscape of a particular body of work demands. It is a very intuitive and organic process, the colors of the work lead the viewer on their journey through what I hope will be unchartered emotional territory. I love the search for awareness, and I feel my work functions as an iconographic map of the psyche.
I am fascinated by the concepts of what is contained -- what is released -- how is life housed in the body and lived through metaphor. Using my own personal mythology as subject matter, and a bridge of the personal to the universal, my art is a very spiritual endeavor; it is an intense exploration of the soul. I am putting feelings into colors, creating magical shapes, and multiple textures. The work is my search for the Higher Self.
There is a famous Chinese scholar, who said that the search for self and the search for god are the same. I have always agreed. This is my vision, I feel driven. My artistic territory is predicated on this exploration. I join my sensibility and relationship to self with an artistic vocabulary of assembled, multi layered forms and an ever changing palette. At present, the metallic colors I'm mixing hold such joy for me. This is a period of freedom. The work is an alchemical process of being alive and searching, driven to create a dance of process oriented iconography.
My philosophy, spirituality, and creativity are the same thing, expressed via my artwork -- these basic tenets of life are interconnected and inseparable. I must make work that is purely spiritual in its translation of experience; I feel compelled to create this art; it is truly who I am -- and in the process, intimately connected to the divine within. The altar. The free standing sculpture.
I hope my work will contribute to a new and healthier appreciation for women's sexuality and life experience in this culture. Our inner life needs to be publicly honored and talked about so women can reclaim our power.