A FEW WORDS

It is generally understood that you can not replicate with words
what you hear in music; that touch can not be conveyed with language;
counting requires numbers; describing the taste of wine is a stretch
often laughable. Yet it is expected from artists that their work can be
spoken as well as seen. It is the gift of the poet to evoke verbally what
is usually understood by other senses. It is expecting too much that
the artist also be a poet, but such is her obligation. The results,
it seems to me, more often than not only subtract from the visual art.

Rather than speak of exploring in quasi scientific style or waxing
sentimental about inspirations at the shore at age 6 with grandfather
or referring to the symbolism, I prefer to use the computer shorthand
about my work: WYSIWYG. What You See Is What You Get.

On a different occasion, in another mood:
The massive quality of each animal that makes up the subject of my recent work is related to my abstract paintings.  A minimalist handling of such realistic subject  matter enables me to place the animal in a grand-scale landscape without including any landscape information.  I have hoped the handling of the drawing material and the size of the subject relative to the size of the canvas or paper has made the animal itself an element of landscape.  Although the animals are in no way anthropomorphic, I feel the ease with which one can identify with them enlarges the subject of the work and permits a sense of human involvement and relationship with nature.

I have been asked why would I choose rats and a cockroach for a subject.  If I were religious, I might say they are all God's creatures.  I am not, so I can only say that all creatures are part of the world and as such are included is the whole aesthetic element of our universe.  Yet I can't quite encompass all life in such a sentimental statement.  The idea of a swarming mass of maggots on a carcass is much more of a challenge to such a philosophy than I am able to deal with.  But I'm working on it.

For the Erie show, IN THE VICINITY OF WATER
The subjects of my paintings, whether abstract of representational, seem on first view to be varied and sometimes only tenuously related, but there are themes and ‘sentences’ that run through them all. The color or texture of water is present in almost all my work. The animals I’ve used in the last couple years are all associated with water or its environs, such as frogs and turtles. The drawings as well as the paintings and collages are all horizontal, sometimes radically: one hundred inches wide by ten or fifteen inches high. Regardless of the colors used, the effect is monochrome and tied to nature. It is my intention and hope that all my work can be experienced as calm and quiet and inviting perceptions of a watery environment. The title of this show, In The Vicinity Of Water accuragtely describes my abstract work as well.

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