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Artist Of The Month - December 2008
What do you love about Art Clay?
The spontaneity and receptiveness of this material is amazing. I love texture and I love jewelry, so using this medium fulfils two of my most fun things to do. I love the things metal clay can do that make it different from more traditional metalworking technology, and I try to focus on this as I work. Sawing and filing are painful for me, so I like not having to do that much of it. |
What are your favorite Art Clay projects/creations?
I love pretty rocks (gemstone beads) and pearls, so combining my pendants with these materials is especially satisfying. I like experimenting with finishes and patinas ( I love rust, and matte surfaces). Mostly I like working with whatever new ideas I can think of, pushing the envelope of possibilities. |
What other media do you work and/or teach in?
I work in handbuilt ceramics, tiles, acrylic painting, collage, watercolor, graphic design, and polymer clay (oh the color!). I teach these in my high school art classes, as well as drawing, printmaking and sculpture.
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Awards / Degrees / Publications / Associations:
Bachelor of Art in Fine Art and Art Education, Montana State University, 1986
Master of Science in Education, Portland State University, 2007
Montana State University: Undergraduate Juried Art Exhibition, 1986, Honorable Mention
Carnegie Art Center Annual Regional Art Show: Walla Walla, WA: (Juried), 1998; Juror’s Award
Carnegie Art Center Annual Regional Art Show: Walla Walla, WA, (Juried), 2000; Merit Award
Arts on the Edge Open Regional Art Show, Pendleton Center for the Arts, 2000; Special Merit Award
My painting/collage work has been accepted in numerous regional juried art exhibitions.
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Biography:
I was fortunate enough to have been born, raised, and educated in Montana, growing up just south of Canada and close to Glacier National Park, one of the most scenic places on earth. Montana being more a state of mind than anything else, I share with my fellow Montanans a sense of profound connection to this "last best place." But you can’t eat the scenery. I needed a job after college.
Arriving in Eastern Oregon in 1986 at the age of 32 to teach art, I have, amazingly, never left. In 1994 I started a 10–year break from public education to explore painting, ceramics, printmaking, book–arts, and art jewelry. I also had experience as a gallery director, picture framer, and workshop instructor. In 2004 I came back to teaching art in public school, and earned my master’s degree in Education in 2007.
My inspirations are the open landscapes of Eastern Oregon and Montana; the ceaseless qualities of human curiosity and perception; science, philosophy, physics, literature great and small, ideas, dreams, memory, the accidental, the ancient, and my high school students, who often have great ideas. My studio overlooks the Umatilla River valley, with its ever–changing panorama and play of light upon the land.
My son recently moved back to Montana and will study Geology at MSU next fall. My daughter lives in Tacoma and studies history and writing at the University of Washington in Seattle. My family is spread all over the Pacific Northwest.
I live with my wonderful husband and our little prima–donna cat in the quiet village of Echo, Oregon, and I teach art at a local high school. |
Waxing Philosophical
My philosophy of art and life is interwoven with my beliefs about existence and the human place in it. I believe our work on this planet––in this universe––is to explore its mysteries; to be curious, tenacious, creative, noble, wise, silly, awestruck, and contemplative––just for starters.
As artists, we pay attention, think and imagine and dream and wonder what is possible, and then make it so. We build and destroy, write and rend, sing and dance and weep. We see the world and become the crucible in which that vision is transformed into the transcendent. Great civilizations have left nothing but this changeling apparition of themselves for us to wonder at. Will future beings look upon what we have made and wonder at us?
What is "Art" for? Why do humans in every culture that ever was or will be create beautiful objects with no discernible purpose? What is the compelling motive for creation, for adornment, for making things that "look good?" Why are we the only species that can contemplate its own mortality in such a way that we leave behind us these monuments to our immortality in the endless permutations of what we call "art and civilization?"
In the end there are only questions to revel in and imagine.
…I think I’ll go make something… |
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