Mixed Media Artist
I create because I am compelled to create. This compulsion to create did not strike me until the age of 39. It took me that long to overcome the message that I was not an artist which was unwittingly given to me as a child. “You are doing it wrong. You are supposed to color within the lines” is something I remember hearing. Now I am quite happy coloring outside the lines.
My work often expresses emotion, because it is emotion that attracts me to any piece of art. My pieces have a patina as if they have been touched by many hands and if they could talk they would surely have a story to tell…
I was born in Baton Rouge, LA in 1949. I grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana and graduated from LSU-Shreveport. I am now living my dream in Santa Fe, New Mexico at place I have been in love with for over 30 years.
While I was always attracted to art, it was certainly something I could never practice. I was unintentionally given the message as a child that I was not an artist. It took me quite awhile to overcome this belief.
My first exposure to the world of art was in the mid 1970s, when I took classes and started weaving. I did both loom weaving and off-loom three dimensional weaving. It was a fascinating and rewarding art form, but I still was very aware that I was not an artist.
I began painting in 1988. It was at this point that I said, “What the hell, I want to try this”. I just started painting floorcloths and furniture without any training, and taking that risk started it all. I loved painting furniture because of the unexpected nature of it, and I thought you didn’t have to be a “real” artist to paint furniture. I have sold pieces of my painted furniture in galleries in Shreveport, New Orleans and Hot Springs, Arkansas.
I began making jewelry in 2003. I studied metalwork at the Dallas Craft Guild. I am especially attracted to pieces that have an aged appearance. Many of my metal pieces have a patina that is either applied with chemicals, paint or as a result of the torch.
For a number of years now my focus has been on sculptural pieces. It was not until around 2009 that I started feeling like and knowing in my soul that I was an artist. It was while working on these sculptural pieces that I broke free. I work with polymer clay, paper clay, paper mache and whatever else I might pick up. My pieces are very organic both in appearance and the process that brings them to life. I usually start with very vague ideas, like a face and let the clay become what it wants to become. As with my metal work, these sculptural pieces have a patina as if they have been touched by many hands and originated in another place unknown to us.