Select images from the Borders/Boundaries series are on display at the Hurst Public Library for February 2021. To see a video of the work, click here. I love the added layer that occurs when works about boundaries are shown in cases! Once the glass is closed, the viewer becomes reflected in glass and must move through the room to see the work from different angles.

This is one of the good things to come out of 2020 - an online reading of the poem written by RL Bussél to accompany The Colonization of Jupiter. It's so much better to hear the spoken word!

Daily life has changed so much since COVID-19 came to town. My structured life and  studio time have become fluid. I do what I can when I can, and when I do I find I need to create more freely. 
This piece has gone through many changes since it began in 2018. I've been thinking about how to combine my interests in painting and textiles, so in a fit of exploration ripped the fence fabric and painted it to the canvas. Then came the birds!
It's 60" x 48" and finally complete.

Last night I was driving home and this song came on the radio. It was equal parts nostalgia and inspiration. REM does it again! Amazing how well this fits with my work. Since there’s not an official video, here’s a lyric version.
I raised the wall, and I will be the one to knock it down.

For the whole story, click here.  For more background info on what inspired this work, visit this page.

Coming soon! Selections from the Borderlands series will be showing at Gallery 219 in Mesquite, Texas. I will be giving a gallery talk on Thursday, January 24th from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. On Saturday, January 26th, a public reception will be held. See you there!

In an effort to return to a large canvas, I repurposed a stretcher frame from last year.  Space in the studio is limited so reuse is the best option.  On the left is the source image from NASA's Instagram account - a gorgeous shot taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of, as they say, "a monster young star."
I've only done four days of work so far and my star is starting to form.  It's daunting and difficult and I don't know how it's going to work out.  I just can't wait to get to the main event of taking a paint pen to the thing and drawing in the finishing touches.  So, between now and then is the glorious middle, which is the stuff of confusion and second guesses and sometimes boredom.  Into the abyss we go.

Jamaica Beach
48" x 60"   acyrlic on canvas

Sometimes I wrestle with a painting quite a bit.  The delicate balance of meaning + color + atmosphere + technique becomes a puzzle. 

In this piece I'm asking questions about personal power in addition to showing a natural disaster.  The original photo was taken at a mountaintop lake in Colorado, but the power just wasn't there.  So it sat to the side for a few weeks.  One of the many things I enjoy about a large painting is that I can make the scale of the elements closer to life size.  This is NOT a large painting, which is irksome AND a good challenge.  So, I did what I could do and enlarged the subject.  Then I added a volcano.  Better.

This piece still isn't done.  The components are not in balance the way I'd like.  I'm not giving up on her, just reworking the components until I feel like I've solved it in a way that makes me love it.
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Does the balance pass me by sometimes?  You bet.  Sometimes I repaint just to realize I should have left it alone.  That's why it's good to take some time off between reworkings.  Give it a rest and wait.  But then continue unafraid and keep trying to solve that darn puzzle.