Buttoning Up the Night
Part of a series in oils, this speaks to my sewing life. For many years I created custom garments by working late into the night to meet deadlines. Quality craftsmanship was a goal that could be attained only by practice and perseverance; the wee hours provided the necessary uninterrupted focus to master the clothing construction process. The finishing touches are huge vintage buttons from the collection my mom passed on to me, sewn directly onto the canvas.
Dance With Me
This piece captures the spirit of my artistic awakening in the Bay Area, finding deep connections with fellow artists and an open invitation to be myself. As a fiber artist, I developed a business of designing and creating custom vestments for ministers. My palette was largely confined to fabrics and threads. Fingers of my Gram’s old spools of thread and tattooed arms with lace relief stretch skyward in a joyous dance of celebration.
Seminal Synthesis
Being present for four years as partner of a theologian proved to be a test in many ways. Participation in seminary classes opened me to radical new thought. The certainty of black-and-white thinking gave way to lessons in relationship, communication, and systems. From a murky stew of mixed emotions and cognitive dissonance emerged a new weave of consideration, an informed consciousness synchronous with the pulse of my own imagination.
Tea Communion
Upon realizing that I’d soon be leaving behind my beloved Boise community, I began saving the teabags from each friend’s farewell cup of tea. I dried these talismans, knowing only that I needed them in my future. Years later, listening to Berkeley Public Radio broadcast our invasion of the Persian Gulf, I opened the brown paper bag of fragrantly dried teabags and arranged them on my old college sketchboard. The painted image sprung from meaningful connections I’d made with diverse individuals in the urban environment known as the Bay Area.
NunSweep
A self portrait, I am gradually recognizing a path through the tangle that is my life. Recent energy work revealed to me the presence of surprising and powerful helpers in my life: emperor penguins, a turtle, and nuns with brooms. This composition captures the hope of enlightened steps within a darkly complex entanglement, as well as the promise of celestial light.
New Weft
Here I have attempted to capture the essence of ‘The Cosmic Loom’ upon which life is woven. The fabric of my life fills the foreground. Strong warp threads of my ancestry, family, community connections, humanity, values, education, spirit, personality, intelligence, imagination, and health run through this fabric and extend into the unknown future.
Chosen and unchosen life forces pull from above and below to separate the warp threads, symbolizing the events of life. Weft yarns, those crosswise fibers packed into the warp, represent my response or reaction to situations and events. ‘New weft’ the color of freshly sprouting growth celebrates my joyous venture into a whole new life.
Salmon Lessons
As an intermediate and junior high teacher, I chose aquaculture as a means to engage my students in critical thinking about the world in which they live. We raised salmon in the classroom for several years, thereby studying the fish extensively and questioning their value on the planet. Students kept notebooks and recorded all manner of data,
oftentimes simply observing, sketching and labeling. My image of imprisoned watery motion is considerably more political than the students’ images.