Statement

I am an artist, and I am a mother. I have three young children who squeeze, squish, hug, tap and bump my body all the time.  I am surrounded by love. I am lucky. I am blessed. I am tired. I am crowded.

 

My ink drawings explore personal space: the lack of, the wish for more and the balance between the two.  The pieces are dense, as life itself is full - often too full.  Abstract shapes seem to undulate like piles of fleshy rolls, body parts, bellies and blubber. These forms mold to one another and become a solid biological mass leaving no room to breathe. However, the work’s density is finely balanced by the restraint of color and the simplicity of materials. The monochromatic fields of blue describe vastness. Sky, water, night, spirituality, those things that make us feel small, those things so big that we feel either overwhelmed or enveloped. Or both. 

 

Using only a fountain pen and ink, it becomes obvious to the viewer that crosshatching is both a tedious and meditative process. While making thousands of tiny crosshatched lines, I meditate on the barrage of everyday life as a mother and an American in today’s world.  

 

I cut into my paper which gives the finished pieces a sort of scalloped edge, if not an entirely abstracted shape.  By doing this I am both fighting and embracing the confines of the basic rectangle and carving my own space.