Education: Colorado State University, B.F.A., Cum Laude, Minor in Art History
Moving to Colorado from southern California in early 1970s was the beginning of my long time involvement with fiber arts. At that time the words “fiber arts” were young and so was I. My Niwot, Colorado studio was filled with three looms and hand dyed yarns that were used to make handwoven rugs. Those rugs were acknowledged with numerous awards and professional publications often featured my work. I taught classes in Boulder and Denver and often traveled throughout the southwest to present guild workshops and programs.
After twenty years of weaving, my focus turned to cloth and its role in the evolution of the American quilt. Without an awareness of any traditional quilt making rules, I improvised to push my creative senses to a new horizon. My quilts have been exhibited in eleven states, Japan, England, and Finland and are included in private, corporate, and museum collections.
In the fall of 1998, my husband and I moved to New Mexico. The dry desert landscape of New Mexico has influenced my palette to one that represents sandy arroyos, eroded sandstone cliffs, cracked mud, and various rock formations. I continue to use cloth, but dyeing, piecing, and quilting have evolved into painting and collage on canvas. The textile making processes remain because their textural qualities are related to those found in the landscapes that influence the abstract expression of my painting. This spontaneous style of making art is like being on a journey without a destination.
A life devoted to creativity in the arts isn’t easy. Every new work presents new problems to solve and every completed work doesn’t quite reach the standard of perfection. As long as I have the needed energy, I will continue to anticipate every new problem because there is so much lovable pleasure in the process.
Artist Statement
The conceptual focus of my work is upon the natural landscape, especially the visual qualities of rock and dirt. My favorite landscapes are found in the west where I’ve visited deserts, mountains, and plains from the Yukon Territory in the north to the Baja Peninsula in the south. Nature’s forces of wind and water create dry riverbeds or sloppy mud, tiny pebbles or huge sandstone cliffs. That beauty of contrast and textured imperfection of the land is what I paint in an abstract manner. The work is not about a specific place but rather a conglomerate of fond memories.
My processes continue to evolve. In the past I actually buried canvas by covering it with two or three inches of soil and gravel in order to stain it naturally. Fortunately I’ve learned to get similar surfaces with paint and other mark making devices. Acrylic paints, inks, pencil, crayons, burning, thread, and unique papers and copy machine images for collage are all possibilities. Each painting is created in a very spontaneous manner without notes or sketches. Many layers are applied in order to complete a conclusion. The final forms are not identifiable because they totally occur in my imagination at the time of execution.Ultimately, I want my art to be an expression that flows out of my heart.
