Artist
Statement
A very large percentage of the work that I do is based on my experiences of
simple everyday life or my travels. The finished art becomes a visual diary.
A subtle humor finds it's way into many of my images incorporated either as
subject matter, form or color. I see my artwork as straight forward and very
literally communicated to the viewer and hopefully very warm and human.
My prints are carved linoleum blocks or wood which are printed on our etching
press one at a time by hand. They are then hand illuminated with watercolor
so every one is slightly different. I have recently started painting again
after many years which is a less process driven activity than making prints.
The free flow of the brush is a welcome deviation from the tightly held tools
needed to carve the lino or wood cuts.
Life to me is more often humorous than not and my child self has a lot do
with how I see the world. Picasso said, "All children are artists, the trick
is how to remain an artist when one grows up." My sign work is an ongoing
project of recording these quickly vanishing American icons. They are a result
of our frequent road trips around the USA.
Each year I add to my visual diary, the challenge and the incentive to grow
as an artist keeps me motivated to discover new ways to express myself.
Education
1978- Bachelor of Science in Art Education K-12, Western Michigan University
Emphasis in Painting and Drawing
Exhibitions
2006 That Dam Box Show, Detroit Artists Market, Detroit, MI
2006 Seceret Places of Childhood, Crooked Tree Art Center, Petoskey, MI
2006 Camp & Campy, 2 person show with Meredith Krell, Vesuvius Gallery,
Glenn, MI
2006 Campalot, 2 person show with Meredith Krell, Vertin Gallery Calumet, MI
2006 Horseplay, Gallery On Main, Bay Harbor, MI
2004 Lancaster Museum of Art Print National 2004 Exhibition, Lancaster Museum
of Art, Lancaster, PA
2005 Camping Out, 2 person show with Steve Toornman, Mackerel Sky Gallery, East
Lansing, Michigan
2005 Birds of a Feather, 2 person show with Vinnie Sutherland, Vesuvius Gallery,
Glenn, Michigan
2003-2004-2005 From Women’s Hands, Exhibit and sales for Women’s
Cancer Fund, Traverse City, MI
Publications
Art Watch, Traverse The Magazine, October- 1997
Grand Traverse Visitor’s Directory and Map Cover Design, May- 1998
Dunes Review cover art, winter edition. 2002
2002- Produced art book project, “Minisens” in association with Steve
Toornman
(etchings), Judith Hitz (poetry) and Chad Pastotnik (engraving & book design)
with linocuts by me. Published by Deep Wood Press and recently added to the
Franklin Furnace Book Arts Collection at the Museum of Modern Art. Also collected
by the University
of Michigan.
Word of Mouth/ Art Watch, Traverse The Magazine, Jan., 2004
Howl at the Moon invitation for Little Traverse Bay Humane Society Fundraiser,
Aug., 2005
Women Power, article in the Traverse City Record Eagle, April 2005
Traverse Magazine, Illustration for story, June 2007
Bio
When I was a child I never played with dolls, it was always my toy horses. I
would make cardboard box stables for them, horseshoes from soldering wire, saddles
out of scraps of leather and halters from string. I imagined myself as the rider
using my hand to animate the otherwise rigid horse. When not actually playing
with them I would draw them over and over again. I still draw everything all
the
time.I grew up but I never stopped making art.
