Artist’s Statement
While I am working it is hard to separate labor, emotions, and intentions. And then there is chance. This, like in life, can be the directional force and impetus for more conscious decisions. Some decisions, like observation, seem imperative and others are more spontaneous.
My prints are conceptually and physically embedded in reciprocity. They are built by the mutual relationship of concealing and revealing, plan and chance. As I investigate the properties of nature with marks and inky flats of color, I explore the properties of paper by folding with the pressure of the press. Layers are built upon until I have captured a momentary balance of chance with a fugitive experience of nature. It’s about chance and the urge to capture a moment and the vision of that experience.
In these perilous times when all of us are burdened by palpable loss in the world, feeling both angry and anxious, I insist on portraying the beauty of nature—its mystery and its vibrancy. It’s as though I’m conducting the song of the earth with color. My printmaking process moves me slowly and repeatedly through light and darks, and a spectrum of complicated emotions. Perhaps the antidote in art for this sense of loss is a search for, and insistence on, the sublime.