The Plague Dog Series
While printing the original runs of the Nature Silhouette woodcuts in 2006, I ran the one-of-a-kind prints that, years later, became the base for this series. Unlike the jewel-tones and the quarter sheets giving a wide clean border to the Nature Silhouettes, this series I printed in a morose brown and red palette using eighth sheets, paper smaller than the blocks themselves. Over each of the one-off multi-layer prints, I placed a solid cream layer, then ran the print under a sink faucet to slough off some of the water-based ink. How to finish the pieces baffled me for years.
After reading "The Plague Dogs" by Richard Adams, the words of a desperate and insane talking terrier seemed like reasonable inspiration to develop the oppressive little monoprints. In 2008, I picked out phrases that seemed to speak for each piece. Never having been a words-in-the-picture gal, I settled on an alternative method to express the action or subject or object of each phrase: rendering an image of hands, frozen in the process of making the American Sign Language gesture for drowning, for falling, for stars. Sometimes, no word in the phrase turned up a visually interesting ASL gesture, which I took as a cue to diversify the imagery with more literal interpretations of the phrases using bones, a bird, a terrier.
The Trapped Memory Cards
Art-making has been described as a cathartic process. It rarely feels that way to me, but these sculpture-drawings are one of my few experiences of creation as catharsis. I also love them because they enable me to make use of some of my collections. I love to collect all sorts of things. My gathering is not exactly compulsive, but it's difficult for me to resist, all the same. In this case, my collections of sentimental items, beautiful and chilling Biblical verses, and rusty metal objects served me well.
The Jasper Drawings
These drawings are the studies for the jasper painting series. I rarely draw for the sake of drawing, anymore! It's always a study for a painting, a plan for a woodcut.