If I had to describe my work in a single word, that word would be "flowing."
My work reflects my sense of beauty and fantasy. I despise the plain and ordinary,
the boring and the bland. I despise standardization and uniformity. So my creations
are all unique and explorations of color and texture and pushing what boundaries
I can to find the limits of color and technique.
Although I don't generally plan each piece in any great detail, I do decide
in advance which colors I want to work with for a given piece. Often, however,
a new color may insinuate its way into the design and I will happily engage it.
I do not plan the minute details, preferring instead that inspiration take those
where it will, even when I have a specific design goal, (as does often happen), in mind.
For my beadwork, I find my favorite techniques are intricate weavings upon which I
will lay or interweave further embellishments. I am especially fond of right angle weave,
bead netting, peyote stitch and brick stitch, but I love to experiment with new stitches
and many of those become favorites. My pieces also feature a lot of fringing which sometimes
even becomes the focus of the work.
For my paintings and drawings, I tend to work even more intuitively, planning the piece
around a central emotion. My landscapes are, in fact, pure emotion, though they also are
studies of the interaction of light and color and contrasts.
My sources of inspiration are widely varied, spanning both nature and artifice. I am often
inspired by music, as befits someone who was once a Ballerina, but also by such things as
a single autumn leaf, an ancient Asian ruin, an idea that flits across my subconscious, an
unexpected play of light through a night time window, some theory I encounter in Astronomy...
Inspiration is, I think, the subconscious at play with sensations that impinge upon it.
I have been influenced by early appreciation of Native American work I saw as a four year
old in a museum in Rochester New York. But also I have been highly influenced by a two semester
Color Theory course at the Silvermine Guild of Artists School of Art, where I was much taken
by the interplay and interactivity of color. As well, I would give some credit to the influence
of the Impressionist painters and such Art Nouveau artists as Alphonse Maria Mucha, Paul Berthon,
and others.
I am a member of the International Jewelry Designers Guild as well as the local
Baltimore Bead Society.
