Umbra – Penumbra Series

Working photographically for many years, I continue to explore and record my surroundings and environs today, mostly with an iPhone. In the past, I would re-interpret my photographs through mixed media works and installations. Currently, I am translating light, shadow, and movement, properties so basic to photography, through oils on canvas. My daily photographs serve as a starting point for the Umbra – Penumbra series, (the darkest area of a shadow - the shadow area that shifts into light). The meaning from one visual language (the source medium) to another visual language is changed by the action of painting. The viewer adds the third aspect of the visual communication process, interpretation.

Summer's Night in the Midwest
Oil on canvas
48" X 48"
2020
We Are But Dust and Shadows
Oil on canvas
48" X 48"
2020
Traversing Paths
Oil on canvas
48" X 36"
2017
Christmas Night in a Small Town
Oil on canvas
48" X 48"
2019

Disruptive Surrender

Abstraction allows for a broader interpretation of an artwork's context. Disruptive Surrender is a reaction to being diagnosed with cancer and subsequent chemotherapy. Along with surfacing: 62+4, an earlier photographic interpretation of my experience, Disruptive Surrender is an off-kilter world that swirls with unknowns, while it simultaneously marks the tests and procedures that become routine, the minutia involved in tracking and measuring an disease. These artworks are a continuous process seeking a physical and mental equilibrium. They may create an entirely different reaction in the viewer, which is equally valid.
Oil on paper, charcoal, gesso, graphite, water soluble crayon, RF paint stick
40" x 53"
2019

Serotinous Dispersal

Some plants are serotinous and only disperse their seeds in response to an environmental stimulus. Carried on the wind, picked up by flowing water and absorbed into the earth, the journey sustains life.
 No. 1 - 6
Oil on paper, charcoal, graphite, water soluble crayon, RF paint stick  11.75 " X 11.75" _ each
2020

Pollinator's Expedition

The Pollinator's Expedition series interprets the challenges to the honey bee, the tiny creatures who are vital to our human existence. The tiny bee is essential to plant growth and by extension, the fruits, vegetables and nuts that fill our plates. "The honey bee population is decreasing due to disease, climate change and pesticides. Honey bees are essential for the pollination of flowers, fruits and vegetables, and support about $20 billion worth of crop production in the U.S. annually," according to Matthew Mulica, senior project manager at the Keystone Policy Center, a consulting company that works with the Honey Bee Health Coalition.
 No. 1 - 4
Oil on paper, charcoal, graphite, water soluble crayon, RF paint stick  25.25" X 17.25" _ each
2019

Newton’s Third Law:
For Every Action, There is an Equal and Opposite Reaction

Each material an artist uses is different in its surface response, just as each sound we hear or image we see sends a flood of information to our synapses to be interpreted and decoded into something tangible and understandable. According to Sheila Ceccarelli “To become ‘articulate’ and able to understand and manipulate the material world there has to be time invested into the exploration of materials and experimentation with a broad range of media.”

Play is essential to a ‘creative’ and as such, I spent many years framing the world through a camera lens, making adjustment to control light, speed and angle. Here, I am able hold medium in hand and react to the interaction of the selected tool to the surface of substrate; it is an immediate response most often beginning without deliberation. Experimentation proves the creative calculation a challenge, forcing success through disaster.

Tempo Markings

Oil on paper, charcoal, graphite, water soluble crayon, RF paint stick  9.75" X 19" _ each
2019

Piscean Fossil

Oil on paper, charcoal, graphite, water soluble crayon, RF paint stick  10" X 14.5" _ each
2019