I love to paint
and sculpt. For many years, I have been working to combine the two expressions of art into one cohesive form. A marriage or
rather a cohabitation of 2D and 3D. I think that I have finally achieved my vision.
For "Bermuda Triangle", I started
with a blank, gessoed canvas and build up the Mermaid and the coral reefs with papier mache. I sculpted the forms with my
fingers and various clay sculpting tools. With acrylic paint, I painted the water background and the reefs. I wanted her to
be shimmery, as a fish, so I painted her with gold paint and glitter. The airplanes are miniature toys and the net actually
came from a bag of onions. "Bermuda Triangle" is my answer to the mystery of the lost planes.
Around
the end of 2008, I had an art show coming up and didn't know what to do. I was feeling depressed about the economy and
had no interest in art making. I told a fellow artist about my general feeling of apathy and how I didn't feel that I
could make anything for the show. Her answer to me, "This is the perfect time for you to make art! It is now when you
must work through those feelings expressing them in your art!" Wow.
She turned it around for me. I got busy producing, "Meltdown".
As a theatrical hair stylist, I work with wigs and hair pieces, sometimes, on jobs. Around my house, you may come across wig
heads. They're head - like forms that I pin wigs on in order to set and style the hair. The forms can be made with canvas
or styrofoam. I happened to have a styrofoam head lying around, so the first thing I did was cut it in half. I took the face
part and glued it to a bare canvas. Then, I examined my feelings and thought that I felt like I was drowning in bills, betrayed
by a friend, depressed about the war, worried about my future, and stuck in a location I no longer felt comfortable being
in. The next challenge before me was how can I say all of those things visually.
My answer was to hit the toy store. I
bought a set of miniature soldiers and a couple of miniature sharks. Next, I went to the craft store and got some plaster
wrap, air drying clay, various thick painting gels, pebbles and mossy - like stuff. After shopping, I took my dog for a walk
and found some interesting woodland spikey seed pods, sticks, and pine needles.
I returned to my studio and got busy. I sculpted the raging sea and the
"balloon over my head" with plaster wrap and gels. Next I sculpted a cracked egg and placed it in a mossy nest in
the far right corner. I painted the face as a clown and added a fried egg on top, because I felt like I had been duped and
left with egg on my face. It also represents the loss of my nest egg. The airplane heading west is where I would prefer to
be traveling, yet there is roadblocks in the form of escalating prices, the war, personal fear, etc. which is sidelining me.
"Meltdown" represents my personal angst and how external factors have contributed to it's existence.
