Recently I had been working from the gesture life model with short, active poses as the basis of figuration.  But isolation during Covid months has changed the availability of everything.  Having no models and being "safe" in work space corners at home, I focused  on smaller scale paintings of faces. The watercolor "2020" captured the uncertainty of a life model's expression in a short pose. I am interested in the faces of people who are finally speaking out, thinking, sleeping, laughing, the expressions that may connect to our own feelings. Quarantine has made a lot of faces available on television.  And text has become a frequent inclusion in these paintings.

Missing being with other people, I unwittingly surrounded myself with face works in progress.  Cutting stencils from value shapes and contours of my own paintings, I could make multiples quickly.  Resolving them as variations takes more time. But during the intense time of developing each painting, it becomes a personal companion for the duration of its resolution and possibly beyond.

Dolls in play and in life act out human concern. In 2020 Covid concern changed the global, universal human condition. My first thought was to find and arrange 12" dolls to represent the new circumstances Covid brought to everyday activities. I canvased second hand stores and my collected dolls to collect as many points of view as an 8' long and 4' wide acrylic mirror surface would allow. Isolation is represented by a "Glow-in-the Dark" tape grid and glass cylinders to contain each doll. A New Playing Field" was installed at the Resident Artist Exhibit in July 2020 at the Howard County Arts Center.

I repurpose 12" dolls to represent the feelings of an outside force pulling the strings of one's intentions and the intentions of others. My puppet series has emerged from feelings of action/reaction, control/response, structure and free fall. This results in simultaneity, many things happening at once with layered meanings, while other stuff is going on behind the scenes. The free fall is my comfort zone in moving from one kind of space or materials to another. Possibilities aren't eliminated by my drawing or painting in only one format, and the 12" dolls were transformed for the "If" installation showed at Towson University's Gallery in 2012.

Whether or not we are conscious of activity with intent, the human body reveals us. The gestural, active figure mirrors the passions, successes, and failures of our experiences. My painting approach to bodily movement is with responsive contour and gesture brush strokes.
      Contemplating the resulting paintings often leads me to develop points of interest with heavier contour, more value range, color, and pattern. Diaphanous figures washed in color appear and disappear.  Wet shafts of color stream across bodies while form dissolves into the grids, numbers, and patterns that give visibility to surrounding spaces. 
       On the other hand, I may choose to retain the simplicity of the short study as a statement in itself.  Sensitive trails of brushwork may carry a message, the story of a person, the needs of daily existence, or any moment of life transition without elaboration.
 

Through time, my paper boats have taken me on various "travels".
This has made me realize that time provides us with companions to travel with. Not always or not often family, our time companions come and go. We turn around and they have changed, come back from the past, lead toward a future, appear and disappear. It is a mystery how the sorting among people we share time's experiences with works.

My visual narrative usually begins with watercolor and acrylic paints.  This year the use of block printing and rice paper layering have been an exploration in building multiple ideas simultaneously.  Acrylic mediums work well bonding varied papers in low relief on paper, board, or canvas.

PAPER BOAT PROJECTS: I recycle the pages of current, mainstream art magazines by folding them into paper boats and signing the bow. This gives them new identity as artifacts. Grouped on a gallery floor they seem to indicate a current. On an acrylic mirror they are reflected as if in water.
Wall art that I have drawn and painted referencing the boats can be installed with the boat arrangements on acrylic mirrors. This challenges spatial boundaries visually as the wall art reflects around the boats. When the mirror is placed on the floor with paper boats suspended in a grid above it, movement and a new set of spatial experiences are provided.
Viewers are invited to take a boat and/or make a boat. As this changes the arrangement on the mirror, the viewers become participants in the project design.

Filming video in museums and galleries, then showing them in galleries or museums, simulates the timelessness and similarity of the museum/gallery experience.
Viewers think they are seeing "live feed".

I proposed, curated, and participated in this installation, inviting 14 artists to interpret the lives of ordinary women. We each provided a 16"x16" self portrait for the wall as well as a garment for a vintage mannikin I named "Evelyn Everywoman"

Women's concerns have been ongoing themes in my drawing, painting, and now in my digital work.

They include a one minute gif animation translated digitally as a continuous loop:
I can recall blotting lipstick ever since I was a girl sneaking a chance to try my mother's colors. "Just A Minute" is the brief, repeated gesture of women applying uncountable numbers of repetitions for a lifetime.
More recently, in Jan 2014, I proposed, curated, and participated in "Ordinary Woman" Installation at Howard Co Arts Center (see above)

Chairs are objects that can convey varied meanings when included in drawings and paintings. In my work they are metaphors for people and sometimes represent me. Active surfaces and layered meanings allow interpretation of chair situations as personal narratives.

The vintage chairs from my family history remind me of the people with whom I shared them. The flea market found chairs can become surfaces for art making or be arranged as installation elements.