Curriculum Vitae

Another Meaning of the Term "Healing Arts"

In the summer of 2007, paintings and drawings exhibited as several series spanning twenty years of my career hung together in treatment rooms and hallways of Paoli Cancer Center, giving chemotherapy patients and their loved ones a chance to focus on something other than the hell they go through. There was no publicity, no postcard, no opening reception. Sales were few. Yet this show was among the most important of my career.

People say that art is a gift to humanity yet artists rarely experience the joy of the unwrapping. Since those who gravitate to this profession usually think they have a message of some sort to impart, it becomes increasingly frustrating to turn out product after product, only to have it molder in the studio unobserved by others. Artists are exhibitionists by nature. We seek public venues, fully believing that once people see the work they will 'get it' and discover us. We might even become famous in our lifetime, whatever that means in today's society. A few (compared to the thousands of MFA's churned out by graduate schools annually) do find a degree of recognition. Most of us learn in time that each show is likely to be an end in itself, leading perhaps to another show, but usually not to 'being discovered.'

Not an easy pill to swallow. Many quit the field once they face reality. Others persevere. Of these there are two discernable groups; intrepid self-marketers, and studio denizens who produce work after work. Studio denizens finding recognition usually have some financial backing, or at least assistance from loved ones who run their affairs in the outside world. Intrepid self-marketers may compromise their output's quality and/or quantity since producing good art is full-time. Paradoxically, so is marketing. And then, of course, life itself intervenes.

Whether or not artists are gifted or cursed is moot. Those who produce it need to continue working despite lack of finances, time deficits and the realization that years of commitment will yield few rewards by societal measures. I fall into the category of studio denizen. Creating artwork contributes greatly to my sense of purpose. The need to paint prevails even as I begin to accept my personal lack of marketing skills. My first 20 or so years as an artist took me through various phases in which I:

1. believed perseverance would lead to recognition.
2. observed the ever-changing role of art within this lifetime
3. tried to understand my own role as an artist in this evolution
4. tried to come to grips with my human role in life
5. experienced what is within control as a human and what is not.
6. felt frustration at what cannot be controlled.
7. sought ways to make the need to create tenable, in spite of losing the desire for recognition (which became both unwieldy and irrelevant)

From these life lessons a new mission evolved:

A few years ago a massage therapist I knew wished to teach me an ancient healing technique called Reiki. The philosophy behind this modality is not religious, but pan-spiritual. The practitioner has no ego about it, acting as a mere vessel through which healing energy opts to flow. This energy has always, will always exist for the tapping. Though skeptical of healing through attunement and intention I accepted Kate's offer and took the course. The recommended beginner protocol is to practice healing on self, family and pets. Giving Reiki filled me with calm while helping loved ones through various maladies. I pursued second degree and finally mastership of the technique. With each step, as levels of experience increased, desire for recognition decreased and the concept of creating for creation's sake began to take true hold.

I wanted to assimilate my Reiki experience with my creative process. While they did not seem at odds with one another, I was trying to wrap my head around the idea of being a vessel of creation rather than an ego who creates. I wondered whether or not I could create art disengaged from my ego; whether the art itself could serve as a vehicle or messenger for which I didn't need credit. I concluded that there is too much consciousness in creating art for the ego to be separated from it. Yet what of the unconscious component of artistic expression?

One night in a vivid dream the answer came. In it I was walking past a vast wall in an unfamiliar place. I saw artwork hanging salon style all along the wall. Stopping to look, I began to recognize the art as my own. I was oddly detached from having had anything to do with the works' existence. Series created over the years hung together, and each individual work interacted, expanding and connecting through the spaces between them. "The art contains an energy all its own" I told myself. "The energy is collective when the pieces hang together, but has dynamic tendrils uniting them wherever they might exist in space and time." I awoke feeling blissfully calm and at peace with my role as an artist. And from that dream my current creative objective arose.

My work exists to connect with others in contemplation, affirmation, peace and spirit. It is there to help any and all who wish to engage in its energy. It is not static, but invites interaction. Changing with the light, it moves through various conditions imparting different messages at different times. It's purpose is to remind us of what is too huge to fathom and too miniscule to see.

Artist Statement

I am in awe of tree trunks; these asymmetrical tubes are a visual treasure trove. While we celebrate their cross sections by turning their hewn remains into something other, while we marvel at the fruits they bear, the sap we extract and the leaves we watch glinting in the sun, we seldom reflect on the intricacies of a tree's outer layer in its full life bloom.

I began observing tree trunks long before I found a proper setting for them. I never wished to depict them in a naturalistic way. (we have eyesight, cameras, arboretums, forests and even front lawns for that) Instead I wanted to discover their attitudes, textures, and color possibilities, create environments, unlikely situations, anthropomorphic metaphors; I wanted to provide viewers an alternative idiom in which to consider them.

The Ribbon Series is an outgrowth of this. I place the trunk form in abstract fields, often with undulating metallic ribbons woven through the composition. In my Tree Trunk Series the form is more recognizable. Often trunks are set against extreme closeups of other trunks. I like to pair a tropical trunk with one that could only grow in a Northern climate and weave them between unlikely barriers such as fences of metal, painted wood or stone.

Most recently mixed media drawings have evolved which vary the subjects introduced in my earlier work on canvas. I've taken an interest in succulents and how they might interact with deciduous trunks and barriers. I've also begun painting succulents interacting with metallic barriers in fields of glass beads and mica chips.

My work is an odd twist on botanical or nature art; Each new piece leads to the next, surprising me with its little bending of self-imposed rules.