About Me
For as long as I can remember, I have been a collector of small things that I happen across and make me curious or amazed or delighted or comforted or intrigued in some way. It might be a blue jay feather laying on a forest pathway, or a spiky seed pod from a sweetgum tree. A wave-tumbled agate from the Oregon Coast, or a rolled strip of birchbark. A painstakingly embroidered pillow case tagged for 25 cents in a dusty thrift store, or a tattered fragment of cloth from my grandmother’s favorite apron. A faded tintype photograph of a long-forgotten distant relative…
The technique of collage has allowed me to gather and assemble my very favorite objects into unique artistic creations interpreting images, experiences, and emotions in a way that connects to the viewer. My textile and encaustic collage art is constantly inspired by the poet Mary Oliver’s invitation to “Pay Attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
In both my textile collage and my encaustic collage, my process is to weave together interesting snippets of tactile and visual ephemera that somehow pique my interest or spark my curiosity or prompt a memory connection or simply delight me in some way.
Collage: a technique of art creation... by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole.
About Encaustics
and Encaustic Collage
Encaustic is a centuries-old art form derived from the Greek enkaustikos, which means “to burn in.” The technique was described by Roman scholar Pliny the Elder in the 1st Century A.D., and the oldest surviving encaustic panel paintings are the Fayum mummy portraits from Egypt, around 100-300 A.D. .
The traditions of encaustic painting are ancient, and contemporary encaustic artists embrace a wide range of formats such as painting, three dimensional sculpture, and collage. Pure unbleached beeswax is mixed with damar resin (crystalized tree sap), heated, and then applied to a surface (usually wood). Pigments can be added, and I prefer to use natural ground pigment which I then mix in with the medium.
I love collecting natural pigment made from the minerals, plants, or insects of the many places I travel to. The yellow ochre ground pigment of Tuscany is a favorite. The wax is kept heated and then applied with a brush or other mark-making tools, and fused between layers with a heat gun or blow torch.
In the case of my Encaustic Collage work, I use unpigmented translucent beeswax to fasten layers of collected ephemera such as vintage papers, historical photos, botanical illustrations, and tactile bits and pieces from nature. The final fused wax layer gives the piece a soft opaque glow characteristic to encaustic work.
About Textile Collage
Working with treasured textiles, collected image transfers, beads and buttons and my favorite stitches, I then begin the process of constructing artwork intuitively and mindfully. I love to look for interesting vintage tablecloths and linens in thriftstores, as well as worn-out vintage garments that I can pick apart and recycle into interesting pieces. Textile work has been near and dear to my heart, passed down from my great-grandmother who was a prolific quilter to my grandmother and mother who were wonderful at embroidery and sewing garments.
My grandmother spent countless hours sitting next to me teaching me embroidery stitches; she was a big believer in always having a little project carried with you in your pocketbook to work on whenever you were called to just sit and wait and be patient about something.
Now in my later adult life I have been especially attracted to the Slow Stitch movement, a mindful needlework perspective that focuses on the joy brought from simply stitching together interesting pieces of textiles, valuing the creative process rather than a particular designed product. My textile collage work comes together intuitively, and I hope to convey that sense of curiosity and play and joy to the viewer.