Baker Artist Portfolios

I Know This to be True is an interpretation of my mother’s passing and my healing. Inspired by the peace lily, a common plant traditionally given as a gesture of sympathy, symbolizes the rebirth of the soul as his or her true self. Drawing parallels between our physical characteristics such as hair and the care and maintenance of the peace lily, this work considers our understanding of our realities, and the spiritual energy and life force that connects us.

July, 2017

Open for nearly thirty-six years, Pool #2 was the only swimming pool for blacks in Baltimore. Accompanied by tennis courts and eventually a playground, Druid Hill Park carved a space in its grove of trees for blacks to enjoy family, sports, and recreation. For many years Pool #2 and its tennis courts provided an environment to enjoy life and celebrate wins during strained times. I, Colored acknowledges the rich experience of black life despite Jim Crow, playing with language of the period to present ideas of segregation versus integration.

I, Colored.

This series of miniature, laser-cut collages reflect a very specific part of our relationship with nature - the part that likes to prune and pick what we want to see of our environment, and cut out everything we don't. As our species has grown and expanded, we have become accutsomed to having control over practically everything. From our homes, where they are built, which landscapes they look out upon, to our gardens, our streets, canyons, rivers, mountains, we have figured out how to fix any "problem" that the land poses to our societal needs.

Black Lives DO Matter. A current term that has the power to unify and divide. This black and white collage series brings light to the ugliness of racism and bigotry that we have witnessed in the past, and unfortunately to the present. Hard to believe that we are still divided in the 21st century as our country claims a path of diversity and inclusion.

A series of digital collages made from vintage postcards collected by the artists. Meant to be viewed while listening to Peals' recordings.

Continued

Using ink and other water media on paper, and an exaggerated, often frantic comic visual language, I make three dimensional drawings which both allude to and frustrate traditional pictorial space. Dense, baroque, entwined compositions are a challenge to navigate and present multiple points of emphasis simultaneously.  Double sided drawings which are then folded , cut into, or popped out, yield continuous imagery which can never be fully accessed or understood at once.

 
I begin working, with at best a vague impulse, the result of living with my accumulated sketches, photographs and collected discarded materials. But, when I pick up my torch and hammers, I had provided no method for myself to proceed directly from initial impulse, to hammer and metal, to a completed work. 
I found I did not think abstractly with my torch and hammers. What I thought about when working with the metal were principally the issues associated with the craft of metalsmithing, which was a problem.

You are what you eat.
A series of hand-cut collages inspired by certain foods and our psychological attachment to them.