ARTIST STATEMENT
For some time, I have been creating narratives written in copperplate calligraphy on chine colle etchings. These have primarily been family histories. I have always seen them as book pages – a collection of illustrated stories.

A few years ago, I began to combine the etching narratives into mixed media pieces called “Ancestor Houses”. Using recycled wood, discarded glass, and fired tiles on which I had written or drawn with glaze, I began to create a series of “volumes”.

My latest work includes many of the previous techniques – the etchings, original stories in book form, and text, hand-stamped directly into the wood. I have also added lithographs and letterpress printing to create limited edition books. These books have unbound pages, and follow the format of books from Tibet.

I will continue to create prints that respond to current issues, such as the Tolerable Diversity series dealing with genocide.

RECENT WORK
LIMITED EDITION BOOKS:
Flea Markets are archives: slices of life. They are repositories of people’s excesses, rejections, mistakes, legacies, inheritances and appropriations.

There is poignancy in some of the flea market cast-offs. Who sells bronzed baby shoes? Did the baby whose cherished first steps were immortalized become a disappointment as an adult? And, where are my great-grandparents’ portraits, sold by my Great Uncle’s lodger for the value of their frames?

Limited Editions of 15, not all available

FRAGMENTS, SNIPPETS, THOUGHTS AND THINGS, ONE & TWO:

ANCESTOR CODICES (all 1/1):

BOOK PAGES:
Synoptic: The Ties That Bind: Hail Mary Hail Mama
When Mama decides to convert to a fish-on-Fridays Catholic, will Daddy cease to be a lapsed Catholic and return to the church he left in adolescence?

When Father Grineau prays for the conversion of the unrepentant children of the marriage, how can he know that prayers are being said for him to find a nice woman and get married?

Will the prayers of an innocent child cause turmoil in the life of the handsome French Canadian priest, causing him to eschew the church?

This first novel explores the fear a child experiences when prayers seemingly are answered with unexpected consequences. Follow the musings and final revelations of our young protagonist as she finally comes to realize how little effect she has on the complexities of a life.

TOLERABLE DIVERSITY:
Quite simply, this work is an attempt on my part to examine cultural tensions which seem implacable. The intent is to provoke thought about the impulse to erase those who are different. In these pieces I have created ”tolerable diversity” -- contexts in which objects representing opposing cultures co-exist, as distinct manifestations, not in isolation or assimilation, but sharing a space, with integrity. The hope is that we can move from co-existence to mutual respect, tolerance and appreciation.

>Full Artist's Statement (PDF)

MULTI-BLOCK RELIEF PRINTS IN LIMITED EDITIONS

HAND-COLORED ETCHINGS, HAND-MADE PAPER, EDITIONS OF 1

ETCHINGS, HAND-MADE PAPER, EDITIONS OF 10

MONOTYPES, HAND-MADE PAPER, EDITION OF 1

MIXED-MEDIA ASSEMBLAGES