| Artist's Statement |
My life has been a process of creating. In my early life, the process involved music. Later, the creative process was developing art partnerships while working in a fine art museum. My love and appreciation for art began when I was very young. Today, art and life are so intertwined that I need art to breathe more easily. Painting is my balance.
During my museum career, I learned the value of the visual arts. I learned that painting, like any art form, is a personal and intimate experience. Making art is a form of communication that reaches beyond places, time and cultural boundaries.
Painting in an ancient city of beautiful architecture and rich color impacts my work in ways that I didn’t expect…but, are delightful to me. The textures of Mexico, created by its deep cultural history, have become an intimate part of my work. After a few years of working only in Mexico, I have just reopened a studio in the United States….in Tulsa where the feel of the space is urban and so very familiar adds a delightful dimension to my work. I am blessed to be able to work in two very beautiful cultures.
For the most part, I feel that painting is not a great mystery. Through my choice of color, brushes, texture or movement, I begin a dialogue that dances between confusion and clarity. For me, painting is making an initial commitment to the canvas and then embracing where it takes me. Often I end a day of painting in a different place than expected. Listening to the canvas and using restraint to maintain what it gives me is a skill that I am trying to learn and embrace each time I paint.
My challenge is to find new inspiration that pushes me to create in new ways. I try to paint from a very personal place…layering my emotions and feeling onto the surfaces. I have come to understand that the concept I work from is only important in the sense that if successful, the viewer can better filter what they see through their experience. My hope is they can then find inspiration and meaning at a level that is meaningful to them. How someone interprets the work is often more interesting than anything I could suggest.
I make a conscious effort to maintain the idea that fear has no place in my creative process. The joy I have in making art is captured within the moments of completion and release…when the canvas becomes a painting and when a person connects with that painting. That is the challenging and satisfying combination that creates my need to paint.
2012 |
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