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breathscribe series, detail
aquascape series, detail
rose series (detail) |
breathscribe series
This series began in India in 1994. I was curious to know what might
happen if the designing, judging artist was intentionally placed out of the
way: what would happen if one didn't design a painting, or paint a design?
During meditation, as the tide of my breath took me deeper and deeper into
stillness and silence, the idea arose to work - somehow - with that rhythm
of inspiration and exhalation which is so fundamental to my life:
"What if I painted the flow of my breath?"
A simple horizontal stroke was
laid down, its length being determined by the amount of paint in the brush -
or by the duration of the exhalation of my breath.
On the inhalation I
reloaded the brush.
I was entranced by the patterns that emerged as I
breathed my way
across and down the surface.
As I pondered the relationship
between breath and spirit (inspiration),
my practice
became a profound personal expression of the sacred.
I began to accept requests to paint prayers
for people and specific places,
and slowly the paintings evolved in their
own way.
Color became significant. Prayers and glyphs were encoded
and
embedded into the preparation of the textured ground itself.
And over the
ground, the breath-strokes expressed the focused prayer,
releasing
it over and over again into the quantum field:
spirit unto spirit.
aquascape series
These works had their origins in samples of shibori-dyed cloth from the days when I was working as a fiber artist.
Arashi shibori is a dyeing technique in which the cloth is wrapped around a pole, tied with cord, then compressed and twisted tightly.
The compacted cloth is then placed in a dyebath, and a pattern is formed where the dyestuff is resisted by the cords and folds.
Typically, arashi patterns evoke the feeling of water (arashi means driving rain in Japanese),
and when the patterns found their way onto textured canvas to be painted using layer upon layer of color,
they became the aquascape series.
roses
Some years ago I began experimenting with ancient
tempera fresco techniques and developed a process using quick-drying acrylic
paints which I came to call 'Layering with Light.' I avoided pre-determined
ideas about what forms might appear as the layers were built up, and was
delighted to find roses - or rather what I perceived to be the architecture of roses - blooming on
the canvas.
wonderboxes
These are little altars where the small and often overlooked miracles of life get to find a home.
I've been making them for as long as I remember - the earliest ones were hidden inside shoe boxes
and you had to peek through a tiny hole to view them.
the art of chance
My favorite game. It saves me from
left-brain cramp, restores default creativity.
See
workshops.
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