I tend to paint in series. My most recent work is in the portfolio The Chamisa is a Ghost with Pale Green Wings. These pastel paintings were initially inspired by my own writing about chamisa. As I begin 2023, representations, abstractions and fantasies about chamisa are my focus.
The portfolios related to the Yeat’s poem The Second Coming and also the images in the portfolio about Climate Change were inspired by poetry.While painting in response to the incantory poem The Second Coming, I chanted the line that inspired me, inviting the collective and personal unconscious into my painting process. Each of these pieces is titled with a line or phrase from the poem.
In the portfolio about Climate Change I respond to a book of poetry The Water Leveling With Us, by Donald Levering. I took a line or an entire poem as a prompt. For instance, “Preach the Gospel of the Avenging Sea” is a line from the title poem.
All these paintings are layered both literally (I apply many layers of pastel) and also metaphorically. For some, my work may "speak" at first glance, but many viewers find that the longer they remain engaged with a painting, the more is revealed.
The concept of "pareidolia" suits my work. Pareidolia is the perception of apparently significant patterns or recognizable images, in abstract arrangements of shapes and lines.
The portfolio Timeless/Travel/Memories/Dream contains many pieces created late at night. One of these Insomnia Tree (to the left) speaks to the situation: I often can’t sleep. Watercolors playfully done and then abandoned become the basis for whatever is occupying me in a near dream state as I paint. To the right, Mora, the name of a place on fire in the desert southwest, the spirng of 2022. Keeping me awake at night. Studio Abstractions portfolio contains a number of major pastel paintings that don’t fit into any of the above categories and the Plein Air Portfolio is self explanatory. The emotional impact of color is my major visual tool. I often find it grounding to select a predetermined palette based on color theory. My images change as one looks and lingers. Subtle transitions, shifting references to representation, and lively figure-ground relationships evoke imagination and the imagery within abstraction. In addition to my primary media, pastel, I also work with mixed media applying pastel and a variety of pencils on top of watercolor.
I've been painting outdoors for many years and engaged in loving observation of nature all my life. My abstract work reflects the rhythms, light, texture and colors of the natural world.