An artist is an observer of the world so in that sense I’ve always been an artist. I grew up shy and southern and this combination shaped my life. Being shy, I peeked at life with close attention to the emotions that swirled around people and situations. Being southern, I learned never to really acknowledge those emotions. Let me say that being southern makes me proud. I love the south. It is green, vibrant, close, hot, ripe, pulsing with life and has rigid rules for the proper way to do and say things. Perhaps these rules keep this fecund life within proper bounds. In the south feelings often go unacknowledged for the sake of form. An observer of southerners knows what you are hearing does not always match what you are seeing. So both shyness and “southerness“left me searching for another voice to express emotions. For me art is an expression of emotion that is straightforward and not scented with magnolias.
Out in nature is where I feel most comfortable. In nature everything fits together perfectly; it is exactly how it should be. Yet with a shift of light the need for change is fulfilled. The same scene is now new and different. The layers of colors, lights, shadows, designs and movement are such gifts. The more I fit into nature the more at peace I am and the more I want to give form to these feelings.
Giving this desire for expression a form has only come in the last few years and has taken different directions. I am for the most part self-taught. Each of the different mediums that I work with satisfies a different need. Sculpting satisfies the need to touch, to run my fingers over the planes and contours of an object, to feel the substance behind the façade. I love photography and the immediacy of capturing moments. In the last years I have settled into mixed media painting and collage. This seems a way for me to combine texture and shaping things with elements from my photographs but not be limited to what is right before my eyes. Mixed media techniques allow my imagination space to roam. Hopefully, as you view my work your imagination will roam along with mine.
Out in nature is where I feel most comfortable. In nature everything fits together perfectly; it is exactly how it should be. Yet with a shift of light the need for change is fulfilled. The same scene is now new and different. The layers of colors, lights, shadows, designs and movement are such gifts. The more I fit into nature the more at peace I am and the more I want to give form to these feelings.
Giving this desire for expression a form has only come in the last few years and has taken different directions. I am for the most part self-taught. Each of the different mediums that I work with satisfies a different need. Sculpting satisfies the need to touch, to run my fingers over the planes and contours of an object, to feel the substance behind the façade. I love photography and the immediacy of capturing moments. In the last years I have settled into mixed media painting and collage. This seems a way for me to combine texture and shaping things with elements from my photographs but not be limited to what is right before my eyes. Mixed media techniques allow my imagination space to roam. Hopefully, as you view my work your imagination will roam along with mine.
