Thoughts on the Current Work

In recent drawings, flocks of diverse birds balance in unsteady columns. Wren, Alpine Swift, Hermit Thrush, Nashville Warbler, Verdin, Sparrow, Swallow, Bronzed Cowbird, Water Pipit, and Bluebird rise in temporary alliance--some rise confident, others precarious; some with purpose, others insecure or surprised.  In other vistas, Cardinals and Rabbits float in temporary habitats. Creatures rise, fall, and float above tracks, drips, rectangles and squares of water, blood, and compartmentalized terrain.

My current installation, Bedtime Story, is formally and conceptually an extension of my drawing practice. The piece began with the memory of hearing and reading Jack and the Beanstalk as a child, and straining to imagine what worlds might exist above the clouds.

As a child I was obsessed with books, and I can still recall the feeling of being transported by a bedtime story. I remember yearning to understand what was real and what was imagined or to locate the place in between. My curiosity in narrative and the nature of being persisted, and as a young adult, I became enamored with magical realist fiction, in which the boundaries between what is real and what is fantastic are blurred. I have earlier memories of discovering original folk stories and fairy tales. Many of the narratives aren’t the purified tales they became in later revisions; in some cases the villain murders an adversary, wins the girl, gathers the riches, and lives a long, unrepentant life. As a girl, I remember feeling a morbid curiosity about these tales and struggling to assimilate them in my growing understanding of a world structure and my place in it. These questions became linked to my own creative impulses and are still embedded in my work.