Artist Statement:
Frequently a word or phase will spark my imagination and an image emerges. This series was sparked both by the call to action from Pope Francis and President Biden who see saving our fragile craft as a moral imperative; and by an article in “The Curator” entitled “Art as a Space for Reconciliation” about Makoto Fugimura’s work:
“But the soul won’t survive – and neither will our human-ness unless beauty exists.”
I like to think of my work as whispering, speaking with the gentle voice of beauty. When we whisper others lean in to hear what we have to say. In this way we make emotional connections that expand our capacity for love and care.My first memory of making art is as a six year old in a polio rehabilitation hospital in Los Angeles. I made a finger painting and still remember the joy of moving the paint around with my hands. So I’ve always done some kind of art work. In the last twelve years, I’ve focused on print making using digital tools to alter photographs to create works inspired by traditional print making media. I also do some painting and paper cutting because I still love the tactile feel of making. In my professional life, I worked as a Chief Financial Officer for a number of different state government agencies and directed the renovation of the state capitol building after the Nisqually Earthquake. I’ve been active in Olympia arts as a founding member of the Olympia Film Society, the City Arts Commission and the Olympia Arts + Heritage Alliance. And I served on the boards of the City Heritage Commission and Olympia Artspace Alliance.
“We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil, preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft.” - Adlai Stevenson
As the earth began to cool 3.8 billion years ago, the first clouds formed bringing life-giving water to the parched earth and filling the oceans. Clouds regulate the earth’s temperature and transport fresh water around the globe. Two thirds of the earth’s surface is, at any given moment, encircled with an ocean of clouds. Our “little blue marble” of a planet is distinguished in the solar system by its swirls of white clouds and deep blue oceans.
Here an abstracted cloudscape is layered with grids simulating temperature gradients overlaid with a map of the west coast of the United States circa 1779, a time when much of the continent was still a rich reserve of clean air, fertile soil and flowing water – primordial, existing in an original state.
These prints were made by layering photographic images together using digital tools. The works were fabricated by printing the images with archival pigment inks on rag paper and then layering the print between acrylic sheets to add depth and stability. Without frames or mats the works become stand-alone objects to be experienced rather than understood. Beauty exists.
One of four pieces in the Primordial / Climate Change a Moral Imperative series: “Cloudscape”; “Arboreal”; " Intertidal”; and “Prairie.”