My paintings are a culmination of creative journeys through a music composition degree at Bard College, a graphic design career, bodywork (second career), and motherhood (never-ending career). All these paths influence each other; they converse and cross-pollinate. The paintings are colorful and rhythmic abstracts of the energies we feel but cannot see. Gestural repetitive linework dances and flows across denim to form cohesive movements. And, in turn, those movements express landscapes, both interior and exterior.
This relationship between the natural world and inner emotional states is what drives each painting. Colorful lines are thrown, poured, squeezed, rolled, brushed, scraped, and dropped onto fabric on the floor. As the layers build, the movement becomes clearer and each piece begins to reveal itself, like a self-conducting ensemble.
Through my previous Reiki work, I have embraced the symbol and phrase “Cho Ku Rei,” generally translated as “placing all energy here, now.” Meditating on it is a method of being completely present in the moment, sitting with whatever arises. My painting process is a form of this meditation. Contrary to popular images of quiet peaceful stillness, my paint-meditations are physical, sweaty, laborious. I am seeking to materialize ‘whatever arises’ into the tangible. By bearing witness to our inner landscapes, we become more present in the exterior ones.
This relationship between the natural world and inner emotional states is what drives each painting. Colorful lines are thrown, poured, squeezed, rolled, brushed, scraped, and dropped onto fabric on the floor. As the layers build, the movement becomes clearer and each piece begins to reveal itself, like a self-conducting ensemble.
Through my previous Reiki work, I have embraced the symbol and phrase “Cho Ku Rei,” generally translated as “placing all energy here, now.” Meditating on it is a method of being completely present in the moment, sitting with whatever arises. My painting process is a form of this meditation. Contrary to popular images of quiet peaceful stillness, my paint-meditations are physical, sweaty, laborious. I am seeking to materialize ‘whatever arises’ into the tangible. By bearing witness to our inner landscapes, we become more present in the exterior ones.