Baker Artist Portfolios

During the Pandemic I made collages with tiny pieces of left-over paper and shapes cut from my hand-marbled paper, composing and colorizing them with colored pencil and/or watercolor paint. I responded to each with no imposed rules, free of the need to tie them into any sequence of work, letting each take me wherever it seemed to direct me.

One of the things I do is marble paper. Intrigued by papers that seemed imperfect for use in book arts, I saw the possibilities of drawing into the swirls to enhance the organic forms that were suggested. After drawing into the marbling, I scanned the papers and made symmetrical framing devices with them using Adobe Photoshop. After having a single sheet of each printed on archival fine art paper, I completed the images with additional hand-drawn imagery, enhancing the results with colored pencil.

"Land use patterns" describes the earth's designed utilization as determined by the topographic features, geologic features, population density, economics, climate, availability of water, mature growth forests, and required need.
 
There are 7 generally recognized land-use patterns; residential, institutional, industrial, road-green belt, roadside, park, and forest. To those, I would add 7 more; sustainable-waterways, industrial-waterways, industrial-devastation, industrial-farming, sustainable-farming, reclaimed-residential, and scenic-roadways.
 

How do we learn to care for ourselves and for our world? By weaving with dental floss, I contemplate the relationships between production, consumption, vulnerability, and care. Dental floss is made by workers overseas, using tiny plastic beads that pollute oceans. 
 

National, state, and local parks preserve the nation's historic and cultural resources, natural landscape, native habitats, and remaining wildlife. I first experienced the Park system in my teens. I was always photographing where I was, drawing sketches and collecting bits of debris from trail sides, tidal pools, and roadways.  I've maintained those visual memories cataloged in large, purple boxes, each marked with a bit of blue painter's tape. Abandoned bird, wasp, and hornet nests plucked from the ground and brush, preserving each from decay.

"Vibrancy" explores how color plays with emotion. Most depictions in this series includes juxtapositions of florals, people, objects, and animals.

"Are we Home Yet" is a series that explores the distortion, exaggeration, and surrealism of what is considered "home."