Artist Statement
My
compositions are derived primarily from handmade papers,
fibers and textiles, handwriting samples, pages from
old books, clay, and other natural elements. Certain
symbolism is repeated in the majority of my work:
birds, insects, clouds, bubbles, balloons, and levitation
all representing flight, floating, or weightlessness;
eggs, plants, animals, fish, and seeds, representing
origins and regeneration; trees and books, representing
strength of intellect; the female form, representing
personal identity; and hands, the instruments of artistic
expression.
Using
these elements, I assemble collages on canvas, wood,
paper, and in sculptural contexts.
Artists
who have most influenced my work are Joseph Cornell,
Andy Goldsworthy, Duane Michaels, Marcel Duchamp,
Kiki Smith, and David Zimmer.
For
twenty-eight years, I've worked in a bookstore, surrounded
by the printed word. I'm naturally intrigued by the
power of words to evoke images, and of images to evoke
stories. I like to think that words or phrases threaded
through a work will inspire narratives on the pages
of individual imagination, unique to each viewer's
experience. This is what I'm hoping to achieve through
my images, the germination of countless stories that
exist beyond the surfaces of the works themselves,
born within the minds of those who see them, and ultimately
born away untold.
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