Making art is what I do to cope with life… to maintain balance. I’ve been an artist since I was a child. This most recent series has been birthed from a lifetime of both pain & ecstasy as a daughter, sister, lover, wife, mother and friend. All the roles I’ve lived are the source for these hand-built clay sculptures. My struggle is the struggle of “woman”.
I’m constantly drawn to nuance and observing the various ways of interpreting what one experiences. I’m captivated by multiple meanings, multiple layers. Exploring a variety of visual mediums the past 35 years I’ve been most intrigued by creating sculpture with lots of color and texture. Just recently I’ve returned to clay for expression for the first time since the mid-80’s. This present series marks a significant transformation for me in my personal life and my mode of art making. I call these sculptures body vessels because the body is a vessel for our soul, our emotions, our hopes and desires but also because the term implies an inside and outside. Our body becomes the reflection of where we’ve been. I hope you enjoy the discovery with me. I understand that for some the contemplation of these forms is unpleasant, however I would say that they reflect the ephemeral nature of life, they call into question the importance we place on our bodily image and they are a powerful metaphor for the difficulty of the journey through life for each of us, body and spirit.
These pieces are made of earthenware, and then electric kiln fired to cone 05. I use both coil and slab methods of construction. After firing, I finish each with multiple layers of acrylic paint and sometimes oil glazes. With some I also use graphite or prismacolor.