Field of Dreams – hand-dyed papers, wax – 16″ x 20″
The papers in this piece were dyed using onion skins (light yellow and dark green) and rust (dark red.) Layering onion skins and paper sheets in a pot, weighting them, and then steaming them for an hour or so makes the most wonderful patterns on the paper! Field of Dreams is one of the names for this quilt pattern.
Not All Who Meander Are Lost – 12″ x 36″ – hand-dyed paper, colored pencil, coated wire, wax.
I started drawing the meander patterns that show up in the background of this piece one day as I was testing out some new colored pencils, and it was so much fun that I dyed some paper, laid it out in squares, and covered the whole thing with the meander. Those squiggles reminded me of the little wire shapes I had made a few years before for the piece of art, so I pulled out some wire and made more. They looked like crazy little figures, no two alike, and they started out lined up neatly each in the center of it’s own square, but somehow the wanderlust took hold, and they started moving around on the piece. The little one at the bottom right seems like he’d like to join them, but hasn’t gotten up the nerve.
Here’s a detail, in which you can sort of see the background pattern. The wax makes it tricky to get a clear photo.
Not All Who Meander Are Lost – detail.
Cloister – 8″ x 8″ – altered and hand-marbled papers, wax.
This is a study for a future larger piece, which will be called She Turned the Cloister On Its Ear. The title refers to the geometry; the ratio of the larger square to the one that is set inside it is a proportion often used in constructing the cloister (enclosed courtyard) of a monastery. The darker papers are altered magazine pages, and the lighter ones are hand-marbled paper.
The Blossoming of Silence – 23″ x 23″ – watercolor, wax, sequins, beads, thread – 2013 – $450
I really had fun making The Blossoming of Silence, partly because I got to work with so many colors at once. The blues, greens and golds of the geometric form were painted on separate pieces of watercolor paper, then cut up and collaged onto the the background, which is warm colors in the center, fading out to the blue around the edge. The texture is made by dropping table salt into the watercolor as it dries, and the little bright spots you see at the intersections are sequins and beads that are sewn on to the paper before the whole thing is coated with encaustic wax. Here is a picture of the under-painting, before construction of the mandala. You can see my studio assistant lying under the table at the right, and how I had the paper taped to an old rocket poster.
Under-painting of Blossoming of Silence
This piece was made for the 2013 St. Stephen’s Community Art Show, where it won third place in the mixed media category. Click on the picture at the top to see it larger.
Sowing Seeds – 12″ x 12″ – found images and encaustic – 2013 – $125
A second piece made with the combination of squares and diamonds that makes this lovely tumbling pattern. This one looks at first glance like it might be made out of wood, because of the colors. Like Liberty, it is named for the image on the central piece; a man walking behind a plow. The frame is made from recycled plastic bottles, the substrate is a piece of an old poster, and the images are from discarded magazines, making this piece almost entirely recycled.
Liberty – 12″ x 12″ – found images, wax encaustic – 2013 – $125
The pattern here is one I discovered in researching ancient roman tile patterns, and I fell in love with how dynamic it is. This is the first of two pieces I made playing with this pattern. Most of the piece is made with pieces chosen for their texture, color, and value (lightness or darkness,) rather than recognizable images, but the title comes from the image on the very center piece. Click on the image above to see a larger zoomable version.
The frame is made from recycled plastic bottles, which are transformed into a classy wood substitute, and the backing board is recycled also.
How Will Peter Pay the Lions? – 23″ x 23″ – found images, wax encaustic – 2006 – $250
This is a companion piece to Loose Connections, also made with magazine images and wax encaustic. The quilt pattern on which it is based is called Robbing Peter to Pay Paul, because an arc is cut from each of the sides of a square and rotated out into the next square, to be replaced by an arc from the adjacent square.
Can you find the two lions?
Loose Connections – found images and wax encaustic – 23″ x 23″ – 2006 – $250
This piece is based on a very old pattern of a square within a square within a square, which shows up in everything from medieval stone pavements to traditional American quilts. The name comes from the way that even though the images were chosen randomly, without any theme in mind, our brains want to make connections between them and find meaning.
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