As a child I am fascinated with the moon, reaching out and calling, pronouncing it “Mun, mun!” My body is my canvas - I paint my face, adorn myself, decorate my room. Struggling for identity I create a persona: false but powerful, it preserves me for a later time.
Lunar cycles guide the rhythms of my process. The moon is our natural mood changer, waxing and waning, inviting us to spiral along. Reaching back through ancestry and mythology, I discover the power of attuning to each season. Sensing into the colors, scents and mood of the day . . . I paint, about being a woman, in search of she who was meant to be. I follow what I’ve come to call The Women, symbolizing a fierce ancient and contemporary feminine-ist energy daring me to say Divine.
Nature shows me the backlash of damage to the earth that mirrors the abuse of women. As witness, I use artmaking to move through grief and rage, often switching to the back of stretched canvas as a symbol of surrendering to the hidden, the inarticulate, the unspeakable. Below the pleasure of beauty, the Gorgon demands to be included. She insists I mix image and text, an art form I’ve always disliked. If the moon is in Gemini, I obey; making art can alter ego, becoming an altar to authenticity (the wooden frame even offers a shelf for objects). I wonder about natural and unnatural consequences, as all things are of the earth. Mixing media, collage, detritus - all are welcome, celebrating coexistence. Paradox wins.