ARTWORK

This blue bridge goddess is wild and free. She dances to the cosmic symphony, and twirls with the moon. She floats suspended above earth and water, lighting the night with sparkle. This is dedicated to the unicorn furry named Sparkle I met under the bridge during Anthrocon.

I am a dreamer, constantly full of ideas and fantastical imaginings. I incorporated images of Pittsburgh, lush flowers, drawings of crows, sunsets, and a vintage picture of Theda Bara. A wide, panoramic view that captures a dreamlike seascape—soft aquamarine air currents, distant silhouettes of birds, and a foreground wash of vibrant red blooms. A dense, artful chenille rug that brings a warm, collected energy to living rooms, entryways, or reading nooks. It lays low and steady underfoot thanks to hemmed edges and a grey underside, so the design reads clearly while furniture sits comfortably on top. Imagine a quiet evening with a steaming mug, the rug’s rich tones catching the lamplight and pulling the room together — cozy, grounded, and quietly expressive.

Reading the Leaves: Study in Tea #1 uses paper that I stained with used tea leaves, and a charcoal drawing. Tea is a very big part of my life, and I aimed to invoke a steamy, comforting feeling. Once I participated in an unusual exercise, wherein we meditated on a moment in our lives when we felt supremely at ease, and content. The moment I chose involved a comfortable chair, an interesting book, a cat and a perfect cup of Quiet Shire (from Gryphon's Tea in Bloomfield).

I explore themes of memory and identity repeatedly in my art. Our memory is fundamentally fallible, susceptible to suggestion, nostalgia, and corruption from invading memories. Our memory and our identity are also utterly linked, once memory begins to go, the experiences that make us who we are starts to degrade as well. We lose bits of ourselves, a subtle shift which becomes a landslide as we are swept up in the force of history. Meet Ruth St Denis (1879 – 1968), one of the most celebrated dancers in the early 20th century. I have paired a ghostly image of this gloriously ephemeral moment of performance with an eroding leaf and a butterfly display I found at the Carnegie Museum.

The liminal times are always the most magical to me. Every day we get a chance to experience the cosmic dance that makes our existence, indeed that of life itself, possible. As the last glimmer of light fades into memory, we sink into mysterious nighttime. That last moment, before darkness envelops us, is gone in a second as we focus on the past and the future.

This piece was conceived as the Goddess of Air, part of my elemental series. If you look very closely, you can see elements of one of Pittsburgh bridges, as well as astrological symbols. She transcends, as Air tends to do. I created tension with symmetrical and asymmetrical elements, and the complimentary color scheme. She is yearning, ever moving as air needs to be.

I Stayed Up All Night And All I Got Was This Glorious Sunrise is a celebration of the Pittsburgh skyline. I have wandered downtown for hours at night, taking pictures as I took in the air. This piece was partly inspired by a kombucha bar, Red Star Kombucha that I frequented. Two of my favorite flavors were fresh cut grass and cran citra hop. I miss all those brassy dames! The purposeful pixilation gives an ephemeral feel to the piece, and it is best in larger sizes.

I have spent hours walking along Pittsburgh's rivers. This image was taken along the Allegheny, and features a railroad bridge that carries passengers and freight northwestward from the city.

QuanYin represents compassion in the Buddhist tradition. A bodhisattva who abandoned her own pursuit of the blissful state to aid others in their path to enlightenment, she is often invoked those in need. Quan Yin was a favorite of my mother, who believed compassion is the key to a good life. The image was drawn in charcoal and combined with images of trees I took outside a friend's cabin on the lake the night before his wedding.  

I take a lot of pictures of blooming trees in the spring. I was very surprised one day to find this wee one singing to the blossoms. Apparently, some trees need a little extra encouragement.

Longing represents daydreams of a far away place. The place exists only in imagination. It is one of my responses to the pandemic. Like most I fantasized about travelling, taking the Oriental Express and slipping elegantly through mountain climes. There are dozens of images compressed to create this textural exploration.

Blue Moon is whimsical, and a playful remembrance of my confessions to the moon. The farm I grew up on occasionally grew so foggy you couldn't see 3 feet in front of you, but if you looked up you could see the sky. On these magical nights I told my secrets to the moon.

I love nocturnes. We attempt to capture what we see in the darkness, the quiet moments before dawn, the silent glow of moonlit fog.

Something magical happened when I was making this piece. The magnolia blooms, which I captured at Mellon Park, when scaled perfectly aligned with the statue of Quan Yin. They wrapped around the bun, highlighted her third eye, and reached down to her meditating gaze.

My mother was a fabric buyer in her earlier working life, and she instilled in me a love of fabric dying and batiks. I attempted a batiking style treatment for this piece, creating 2 dimensional image that is still rich and somewhat uncontrolled, chaotic.

The original image of this mannequin came from a shop window in Chicago. I wanted to play with the contrast between the built and the natural environment, as well as unachievable idealizations of beauty. The ephemeral butterfly dress, and the leaves that blend into her wig contrast with the gray buildings, plastic mannequin, and chain at her neck.