Artist Statement
“Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.”
Pablo Picasso I am self-taught and love to explore and find my own way. However, like the female painter in Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse", I am terrified of the blank canvas. "Where to begin?— that was the question at what point to make the first mark? One line placed on the canvas committed her to innumerable risks, to frequent and irrevocable decisions." I like to incorporate mixed media, to give myself a starting point. You will often find collage elements in my pieces and I also love working on and with found objects. Over the years I have worked with photography, oil painting, collage and these days mixed media encaustic which pulls it all together. My Russian grandfather was an immigrant and ran a junk yard on the wrong side of the tracks in Albert Lea, Minnesota. As a kid I loved to roam around the lot and explore whatever showed up. I still do that. Just yesterday on my bike commute to work I picked up a book that had come apart and was strewn over the sidewalk. I felt the need to stop and pick it up. I have two sides - part of me needs structure, and a bigger part of me wants to be free. Making art brings it together. I am bound by the size of the panel or paper or structure I'm working with, yet totally free. |