A question you might ask…

What to do?

On the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, the American people finally had a forum to express concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air – and they did so with spectacular exuberance. Because of this powerful grassroots effort, the President and Congress was moved to create the Environmental Protection Agency, set national air quality standards, establish pollution regulations and ban DDT.

Although today the ecological problems of climate change and pollution seem no less daunting than they did on that groundbreaking day, in a testimony to the power of the imagination, this exhibition brings vision into the conservation conversation; adding Revision to the familiar Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

The environmental challenges often seem so huge that one can feel demoralized, immobilized and bewildered about how to take action. The complexities appear to be so entangled that having any personal impact seems impossible. But, if we all begin with one small gesture, together the accumulation of good deeds can make a BIG and positive change.

Everything you do helps! Start right where you are … be it sweeping the sidewalk in front of your house or a tending a watershed not far from where you live. The choices you make, make a difference. Anywhere, everywhere can be a place for stewardship.

 

Veils at the de Saisset Museum

What a thrill to enter the gallery at the de Saisett Museum and see my veils so beautifully displayed. The dark grey walls set a contrast to the white of the veils and enhanced the charcoal black of my drawings. It was wonderful to speak to the gathering of art appreciators about the hours in the studio rendering the drawings and the reward of seeing that solitary work made public.

The Veil: Visible and Invisible Spaces began its journey in 2008 and will continue until 2013.

Thanks to Naim Farhat for documenting the show. 

For years

For years, I have been an art instructor in convalescent hospitals and senior centers, working with students who are facing a variety of physical and psychological challenges.

When I draw the faces of my students, I marvel at what time and gravity has accomplished. I look without the predisposition of contemporary fashion which judges wrinkles as an anathema. In our culture with its youth mindset, elders just by their age become veiled, become invisible.

My métier is the human condition. I serve as a witness and become a conduit and a reporter for the life experience of others. Each of my models/subjects have entrusted me with their stories. Each of my projects is an investigation of my private concerns about the face as a site of aging, identity, persona. It is my intention that the answer is transposed into the universal themes of growing up, growing old, growing closer, growing wiser. Time, process, and personal relationships inform my materials.

This portrait series celebrates the beauty of age; the faces of women of a certain age. I draw the folds and lines of experience, expressing the topography of the well lived face.

A portrait is not just a drawing of the outer person, it is a summation of the life lived: the lines and crevices, the events and junctures of experience. The themes and revelations of portraiture are powerful. Through inspired rendering we can really see another person and in them reflections of ourselves.

Drawings