Face It, Baby #21992, acrylic on canvas, 50" x 42"
$1200.00 US
click images to see enlargement
Face It, Baby #2
1992, acrylic on canvas, 50" x 42"
$1200.00 US
Between (My Ferragamo scarf)
1994, oil on canvas, 18" x 20"
$900.00 US
On a Somewhat Less Altruistic Note...
1994-98, mixed media, 5" x 7" each; 13" x 11" each, with
frame
(triptych, custom framed)
SOLD
Half Dozen
1997, oil on canvas, 3" x 4"
SOLD
Egg Study #5
1998, oil on canvas, 4" x 6" oval
SOLD
Orchid,
fading #2 (before revision)
2003-07, colored pencil, encaustic on birch panel, 12" x 12"
NFS
Untitled
(leaf)
2003, colored pencil on ash panel, (4.75 in. x 7 in.)
SOLD
more images coming
STATEMENT:
At the San Francisco Art Institute, I made surreal, symbolic, realistically-rendered paintings of human infants and skeletons under water, using acrylic paint on canvas. These were not meant to be morbid, nor did I intend them to be disturbing (see my misc. section, Face It, Baby ).
This archetypal imagery came to me in the early 1990's, during meditation encounters with the subconscious, while enrolled in a course called "Art, Spirit, Psyche," at the San Francisco Art Institute. It felt sort of like watching an old, monochromatic, World War II newsreel: while still awake, but with my eyes closed, I clearly saw a living infant (no, not a fetus), floating quite calmly in some sort of liquid; the child moved its limbs quite freely, so I didn't perceive it as amniotic fluid. The liquid seemed to be a large body of water, yet baby was quite calm!
When I was painting my first impression from this vision*, a stranger came up to watch me, as I worked in one of the S.F.A.I. studios. He stood there for some time.
"You obviously don't have kids, do you?" he finally asked me.
"No," I replied, turning to him with a smile.
His jaw clenched. "I didn't THINK so," he huffed, and stormed out of the studio. I can only imagine that the poor fellow must have thought I was callously painting a drowning baby.
Not so! Many years later, while researching Celtic stories for my current work, I found a reference to Taliesin as a "child emerging from the sea." (*The infant in the painting bears an uncanny resemblance to my sister's son, Evan, who was born three months after I had my vision. I took a photograph of him at six months of age, held aloft by his mother in front of the painting, to document the similarity.)
I have been present at a few actual births as well as deaths. And I have been influenced by living in San Francisco's Mission district, where Mexico's Day of the Dead is celebrated annually on November 1, which follows All Hallow's Eve, or what is now called Hallowe'en. What surfaced in my early to mid-1990's work is the immortal triad of human existence: time, love, and death, resulting in paintings which echo traditional Mexican Vanitas (see Between (My Feragamo scarf) and Cupid, being stupid). An abstract image, a portrait, or a still life--all can be permeated with potential and loss; life does not exist without death.
In the late 1990's, I moved into making mixed-media art. One was a triptych, using photographs I took of my plastic skeleton, "Fred," in Lake Tahoe's snow (see On A Somewhat Less Altruistic Note...) This work was originally inspired by an earlier brush with Eros, or Cupid. For the record, though, I want to clarify that Cupid is not really cute, is NOT a cherub, and is definitely NOT AN ANGEL!!! See Cupids (Recommended reading: Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis.)
Ever since studying early childhood education and teaching preschool, I have been intrigued by psychology. Traditional music and stories from all over the world, as well as the practice of caring for plants and animals, play critical roles in helping children to develop their own internal moral map toward integrity and maturity. Children need to learn stories, songs, and dances from different cultures, and to work in gardens, tending to and observing natural life cycles, etc. So many children are deprived of these opportunities. (I know, I know: some adults feel that Grimm's fairy tales are too brutal and/or sexist for children--and, taken literally, of course, they could be! Nevertheless, I have come to believe that reading some of the classic Grimm's fairy tales to children is helpful at certain stages of their inner development. I think Bruno Bettelheim's The Importance of Fairytales should be required reading for teachers of children ages 4 to 11, as well as for the parents.) The life sciences must not be merely read about or remotely experienced by our urban youth. I suspect that our earth's very existence is now imperiled as a result of this kind of educational omission; our culture has ignored how everything on this planet is interconnected.
I am still trying to figure out how all this might be reflected in my artwork. I've read some books by Joseph Chilton Pearce, and have read a few of biologist Rupert Sheldrake's books on his "morphic resonance" theory, and also a bit of Rudolf Steiner (I attended a Waldorf school, and was later a teacher's aide in their kindergarten), as well as Marija Gimbutas, Ashley Montague, Carl Jung, and Joseph Campbell. I perceive a common theme indicating certain universal cultural connections, particularly those practiced in pagan spiritual and practical earth-wisdom, which continue to resonate for so many people today.
From an artist's statement I wrote in 1993:
I am interested in the human ability to conceive of an existence beyond the here-and-now, beyond what our senses perceive, beyond our scientific definition of reality. Transcending our various belief systems, this ability connects us, if we permit it.
What alternately alarms and amuses me is how some of us get into trouble when we mix up our notions of history, myth, scientific fact, and religious belief.
So, if it isn't matter, does it?
And why do we even ask?
