Bio'gear

From my latest art statement:

In my life I have been a potter, a painter, a sculptor and somewhat of a carpenter (I build my own art panels) but I finally began foundering my work about seven years ago. My first professional pieces were elaborate bronze koi fish whose fins interlock, creating abstract sculpture with several entwined animals. Wanting to make even more detailed work, I began experimenting with my own lingerie. I knew I was on the right path when every single piece cast beautifully. This isn’t always the case in foundry so it compelled me to push the envelope.

I appreciate the properties of bronze in that I can use the metal to achieve my final goals of detail, texture and intense color. I have always been fascinated with metals as the art process involves taking soft, pliable material then forming it into something hard, distinct and eternal. Bronze work is permanent - I want the pieces that I labor so hard on to last longer than I will.

I had been bronzing works for a few years when my father told me that he and my uncle had actually built a foundry in our garage when I was a kid. I knew he cast art at our home, but back then I guess I thought all fathers brought home monstrous containers that made fire. He also welded. It was all so perfectly normal to me that the process of metal work is now second nature.

In spite of my fascination with the challenging tasks of casting bronze, my first love has always been painting. I have ventured into an area using metal emulsions, patinating directly on canvas or wood panels as I work with the wet liquids. This allows me an element of surprise; I never know how it will turn out until it is finished. These metal-based panels serve as background for my representative abstracts. I consider my bronzes and paintings to be somewhat autobiographical - soft, smooth, hard, whimsical, sharp and dangerously delicate.

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I currently hold a day job with a law firm, maintaining (and occasionally redesigning) their web site, producing medical and trial graphics, while working nights on my second "job", doing web sites for friends and clients. I also attend the Glassell School of Art a couple of nights a week, which allows me to create bronze works, jewelry, and most anything that my mind can dream up.

I also do volunteer work for the I Have A Dream Foundation, working with my "kid" (she's 18 now) to ensure she finishes high school and holds on to her dream of becoming an architect.

I have worked in the architectural field in several capacities, the last major gig reformatting CAD drawings to produce 3D fly-throughs. I taught AuoCAD for several years, most of my students being older (and much wiser) than me, teaching me more about living than I could ever return with CAD skills. I saw all of them regain their desired employment in the many fields of their choice, from Civil Engineering, to Architectural Design, to machining and project management.

I've attended the University of Texas at Arlington, University of Houston, and hold a somewhat permanent locker at the Glassell School of Art.

Hobbies? Who has time for hobbies? I make jewelry, bronze works, paintings, write copy, poetry, nurture friendships.... no time for hobbies.

Somewhat self-taught, I have been painting most of my life, and pursuing just about everything else on the way. I developed a strange and wonderous fascination with architecture at the age of 4. Raised in Texas, reared in the buckle of the bible belt, I also developed an aversion to false folk, TV preachers, and muzak.

Synopsis: She began her interests in art, rounding that out with medicine, a little salt and pepper dabbling in architecture, ending with a whipped cream topping in computers, making for an exhuberantly fun life. Add to that bronzing, jewelry-making, graphoanalysis, energy medicine, creating her own spa concoctions, and embellishing her garden with intense magic.