Galleries

Synergies: Haiku/watercolor

Sometimes an experience is so intense that capturing it needs time and multiple dimensions

Walking in the desert as sunset approaches is a magical time. Dead chollas glow as the late sun penetrates their thorny skeleton. I stood for a while marveling at their “aliveness”. I dreamt of being able to capture the moment. Words as well as images flooded my brain. I conjoured with words all the way home. Juggling reality, emotion and timefulness. As soon as I got home I scribbled words in my sketch book and let the thought of painting incubate for a while.

“Cholla” water color on cold pressed paper, 9″ x 12″

I’d be interested in your opinions regarding putting haiku verse on the painting. What does it add, does it distract?

“Possibility” moves on to a new home

… Moving on…the back story and bon-voyage

“Possibility”
Ambrosia Maple burl, bass wood, Poplar, copper wax gilding.
10.5” tall, 5.5” diameter
“The hollow sphere is smooth and light, yet its visually intriguing surface invites contemplation…
…fitting perfectly between palms, it warms to the touch inviting thoughts of the future”

It is always exciting to see work move on to a new home. At the time I created this piece, my world had been turned on its head, and I was struggling to see the future. The piece emerged subconsciously from the confluence of exploring the possibilities of inside/outside turning and my own emotional transition into “singlehood”. One afternoon, while swimming in our local pool, I became mesmerized by my shadow on the pool floor. It was a bright sunny afternoon and I was trying to make long powerful strokes. A small wake appeared close to my head and my shadow kept appearing, disappearing and reforming. From those fleeting reflections, I envisioned female forms emerging, phoenix like, from the old, incomplete world supporting a new world order that is yet to be defined.
Initially, the backs of the three female figures faced outwards and were turned as a single unit. The three sections were then rotated to face outwards and carved to reveal the front of the figures.
The Globe at the top is hollow and free to be held.

The new guardian of this piece has recently moved to Green Valley. It is always bitter sweet to leave a place that you love, but new places hold special excitement too. I hope that Possibility’s globe will inspire and hold new dreams of the future.

Bon voyage….

“Full Moon” series continues…

It was exciting to get back into working with wood after a seven month Covid-closure of the community wood shop where I work. In my “Full Moon” series I am exploring my own relationship with natural world here in the desert region of Southern Arizona. I get my inspiration from the names of each full moon, and those names are rooted in the tightly couple relationships indigenous peoples of North America had with the earth and the cosmos.

My birth sign is Virgo, and each piece features the constellation of Virgo together with a representation of the Sun, Earth, and moon.

The latest piece captures my longing for rain and the dramatic violence of desert storms. I long to hear, see and smell the desert soaked in rainfall.

Several people have asked me how I come up with my ideas. It’s hard to answer as my brain is constantly skipping between visual images, sounds and the written word. I guess that is how imagination works. At some point I start to capture ideas in two dimensions sketches. These sketches are all over the place both physically and metaphorically. It would be nice to say that I am organized and have a sketchbook with me at all times… not the case. I end up scribbling on napkins, receipts, envelopes…. Sometimes the sketches are just words, but eventually a picture emerges. The sketch I have included above revealed itself to me on the butcher paper that I use to protect my workbench from glue and dyes.

Peri-Pandemic

The good news: My Dark Sky sculpture “Hunter Moon” has been juried into the Fall 2020 Tubac Center of the Arts Members’show. The show opens on November 20, 2020. The opening reception will be on Facebook live and the gallery is open for visits. (www.tubacarts.org).

“Hunter Moon” was the first in a planned series of 12 sculptures to celebrate the Dark Sky. Each piece features a red moon, a representation of Virgo, my birth sign, the sun and the Earth. The titles are embellished with personal perspectives that challenge my often restless nights. “Hunter Moon” explores the trade offs that we make when we try to restore our exhausted natural biological rhythms.

My series ground to a halt and with it my creative energy for things 3D when Covid forced the closure of the community woodworking shop, where I work.

In September the woodshop reopened, and with it my creative energy for sculpture. My work hours are limited due to “an abundance of caution” but the 6th sculpture in the series “Thunder Moon” is on its way. It’s a piece has been rumbling around in my subconscious since the early summer when the promise of the Monsoon dangled expectantly. Well it never came. The heat and dryness have been relentless, punctuated with weeks of overcast smoke filled skies. The sunsets however were magnificent!. “Thunder Moon” represents my longing for the violent psychedelic storms that punctuate the normal summer months… “Thunder Moon – I as Virgo, want to dance in the light to the rhythm of your beat”.