About the Work

My work is very introspective. My pastels reflect my relationship with the materials I am using and explore those creatures whose interactions with the world are pure and simple. My oil stick pieces extend this exploration with color and texture and my collages allow me to create worlds of my own.
My pastels on paper are inspired by my attraction to old paper for its contents, its images, and its aged beauty. They employ the stains, discoloring, stray marks, and creases give these old sheets a richness not possible with new paper. I use stencil-like silhouettes worked densely that are inspired by the existing text or music notes on the paper that forms their backgrounds.
Working in collages allows for free association, using vintage periodical and book images to create discrete worlds merging image, color, and placement. They play with concepts and redefine reality. Their elements are combined intuitively sometimes with an idea of what I want to achieve and sometimes just letting the elements themselves drive the image, one thing leading to another.
There is always something of a surrealist element to collage, letting logic and reality go. These images were driven either by the text in a chosen element or by the configuration of that element. The results are pictorial “dreams”, bits of reality recombined to produce a new free form invented world.
I am exploring my continuing fascination with black birds and how they move in the world in oil pastels. Using simple shapes as landscapes or simple color backgrounds in vibrant hues complement the dark black birds moving in and out of that world.