These paintings are the record of a tumultuous summer in the United States when it became apparent that our country had been cleft in two. In 2018, healing from foot surgery, I was forced to literally settle down physically.  I temporarily abandoned my requirement of standing to make paintings relating to the human body and mark-making, becoming more cerebral in my approach to subject as a result. The radio held me captive as I listened to the Kavanaugh hearings, raging verbally at what I was hearing and inevitably raging on paper as well. I cannot help but make beautiful work while using such gorgeous materials as luscious French pastels and 100% cotton rag paper and I use the seduction of rich color layered on thickly to bring the viewer closer. Then I get to tell my story.

“Anger” is a very poetic, sharp but abstract response, the smoky, fuming purples against brilliant flamelike orange marks, a pendulum signifies time. “Dear Supreme Court” is full of symbol and writing, including the words “Rape is rape” oranges and yellows screaming. “Pulse” is the image of a heart broken in two, with a small area on the lower right softly beating and symbolizing the potential to heal. It is a prayer. “Study of a Conscious Mind” contains more traditional space and depth combining organic forms, hints of a skeletal fragment, weird purple marks (upper left) that taunt the emerging consciousness and by its depth offers a possibility of escape. “Climate Change” is dedicated to my enlightened activist daughter, and is a beautiful image of an iceberg calving, a video I watched over and over knowing it meant the polar ice is melting too fast.

Events moved fast in 2018, like the California Camp fire that devoured the town of Paradise in November. The human rights movement, the Womens movement, #MeToo, School strikes for Climate Change – anything you approached was politically charged. The latent political content in my earlier works took center stage. Now in 2020, it feels almost an indulgence to create art about anything but Human Rights, BLM, Covid-19, #MeToo. 

Climate Change

30x22 Pastel on paper

Study of a Conscious Mind

30x22 Pastel on paper