Artist's Statement

I am a maker of vessels and androgynous human forms. I work with materials gathered from my land and with sturdy reed that I paint with an array of pigments. My curiosity has led me down many paths. I like to mix media and often include found objects, fabricated metal, and papers. Paper making, bookmaking and collage have all found their way into my work.

The conceptual figures I weave are tubular and hollow—airy columns, colored in hues of ocher, mahogany, terra cotta and ebony. The abstract forms perhaps reference human shapes, but may also be reminiscent both of natural and human-made architecture, clusters of underwater sea flora, the columnar forms of forests and towers, the remnants of a clear-cut landscape. I try to blur the boundaries between human form and other life forms. Sometimes, pod becomes vessel becomes chrysalis becomes human or something else, as yet unidentified.... nature in transition.

I am curious about associations in art which sketch relationships between humans and their environment. My work reflects my sense of place, the relocation from urban to rural surroundings and the outstanding physical beauty of my island home. Gathering plant materials from the area and combining various elements offers me a method of documenting my surroundings. Chewed beaver sticks, seed pods, beach rocks, tree bark and rusty metal dug out from the pasture have all found a way into my work. This process allows me to examine, combine and portray these ordinary things in a new way.

Having started this work in 1987 as a basket maker, I still love the vessel form. I've made hundreds of containers; call them shelters or nests, boats or baskets, there will always be a new way to contain space.

November, 2005