ABOUT
I am a fine craft artist currently involved in mixed media collage, paper jewelry, photography, fiber, and found object sculpture. Having spent thirty years as a ceramic artist, working the clay in a tightly controlled way to make subtly glazed classical forms, I find it exhilarating and liberating to dive into the world of exploding color, pattern, and composition that, for me, is collage and mixed media.
My work, both abstract and figurative, is composed of many materials: handmade, antique, and commercial papers; fabrics; organic and inorganic found objects; photographs; magazines; parts of my own monoprints, paintings, and digital photos…whatever works is invited into the composition. A logical progression has been my foray into jewelry design, with unique paper collage earrings becoming a prominent part of my body of work.
Techniques I use include gluing, sewing, cutting, weaving, quilting, and digital photography, the latter often pushed to abstract extremes. Themes vary, and range from personal, environmental and political issues, to quilting and botanical influences, to patterns and pure abstractions.
Having spent many years in southern Japan, I find that the Japanese aesthetic figures strongly in much that I do. A trip to India in 2013 also provided immense inspiration for my work. In addition, there are the fruits of 43 years of nurturing and artistic generosity in many media from my fellow fine craft artists in the Long Island Craft Guild, for which I am forever grateful.
I do my artwork for the sheer joy of it, for play, for the (almost) instant gratification, for the absolute freedom to create whatever pleases me – what good fortune!