Tag Archives: #InTheStudio

New in the Migrations series

This is Border Crossing (Touch 4), Mixed media on stretched polyester film, a modest
22″h x 30″w.

This series embraces the fluid space between the past and the present, between a homeland lost and a homeland gained. Here each wave meets at my heart with a gesture of embrace. The translucency of the polyester film points to a space between actual and conceptual representations. The viewer can see the recycled wood stretchers, sometimes the wire, and construct in their minds how the image comes to be. Viewing becomes a surrogate to the creative act.

It’s a self-portrait based on personal memories, but these memories are more than mine, they belong to all of us. At the core of the Migration series, itself part of the Triumphs project, is the exploration of archetypes. And that rich treasure house of primal imagery is hardwired into all our bodies, yours and mine.

 

New in the Migrations series

This is  Border Crossing (Touch 5), 24″h x 36″w from the Migrations series, in which I explore the archetype of the Hanged Man, with all its tropes of sacrifice, suspension,  and new perceptions.  Migrations are not just the physical ones– we leave one country for another. Or metaphysical– we transition from life to death. Migrations can be the internal journeys our minds make as we scrub the landscapes of our memory.

My family and I were sent to an internment camp for political dissidents when I was a young child. My childhood crush, Toni, would entertain us younger kids in the camp by dancing with a skeleton. He was full of life, and comic passion as he danced with that skeleton! As a political refugee, the loss of my homeland is a bittersweet caress, and his dance a symbol that haunts me still. It represents the resilience and joie de vivre of the human spirit.

 

New in the studio: Photo Sketch for new painting

I draw every day, on good paper, in my sketchbook, on my iPhone, anywhere, really. I also use my camera as a sketching tool!

Why not? It’s easy to try out a lot of ideas, capturing images that I can play with later in a variety of media.

My work delves deeply into different archetypes, and after two years of working with The Hanged Man, I am eager to move on. I’ve been exploring the archetype, Union of Opposites over the last year, but everything about the archetype demands huge time commitments.  Gotta wait for a sabbatical or summer to dig in. Bummer.

So for now, I am playing with the idea of multiple realities and ways of knowing…yup, archetype of the High Priestess. So I’ve begun sketching what I call a series of Fata Morganas. Part Morgan Le Fay, part mirage.

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