Skull

Deer Skull, glass, real antique red coral beads, real south sea pearls, real antique mother of pearl beads. Black glass around eyes. I really, really dig this piece. The skull was a gift. Or, rather, was given to me to pass along to somone 6+ years ago. I made it into art, as I doubt I will ever see the intended recipient again. And, anyway, I had a vision and had to make this.

Pink and Black Abstract

I really like the colors and my ability to let go and give in to negative space, which, in this case, is painted with pewter paint. Dramatic!

Working with what is around

The reason I work with the media I do is because it is what is around, it is free, and it is usually thought of as trash. I absolutely look crazy picking up stuff from the side of the road, in gutters, on railroad trax, but I am recycling and picking up trash when gathering my art supplies. We all win when I look insane. The only non-found stuff in my work is the foil and adhesives, which I can get in most cities.

I was in Chicago, my hometown, visiting for an extended amount of time. I was expecting I could just quit Art cold turkey for a couple of months, and I was wrong. My father builds things, so I had access to wood. My parents enjoy the wine (which, thank Bowie, because visiting is made much easier on the grape!), so there were plenty of bottles, and I admit to breaking these on purpose for Art's sake. I do not normally break glass, as there is always plenty around, however, They live in the suburbs, so there isn't much to find around their home. In addition, there was a large broken vintage blue Mason jar in the garage. Anyway, these two pieces were created with wine bottles, a vermouth bottle, a Mason jar and some old nail polish my sister left when she moved out years ago to make the flowers pearlescent. Beads at center were from a bracelet one of my nieces broke.

The imagery isn't ground breaking or exciting; I had to get my yayas out, in the parlance of some time. Maybe it was all of the Monets at the AIC.

On Fire

Let the mother fucker burn!

Landscape Rigel 07 Number 3

I like purple glass. I am giddy when I find some.

Strata

White Knight

Am I being ironic? I don't even know anymore...


Glass. Horsey from a chess set.

Architecture

I've figured out that my work photographs best outside in direct sunlight, however, I need to work on my framing or photograph on fabric; pardon the grass. I love this piece. Idea was deconstructing/reconstructing of cities/history. Bits of oddities peek out amongst copper gilded glass, milk glass. Fragments of tiles with pigment painted scallop shells. And a whole panel of found glass painted with this antiquing stuff my mother sent me. On found, not completely flush wood, painted in pigment.

It captures the sense of pride that a building must feel as it stands tall and stark, even in the face of an economy that is no longer using it as it once did, it is still a tactile reminder of greatness.

Full piece, close up of top, close up of bottom.

In Cairo

Sculpy replica of the tattoo on my outer left leg pigment painted glass, copper foiled glass on gilded found wood piece.

Elegy for FLW

Inspired by the stained glass of F.L. Wright.

Glass, silver foil on gilded wood.

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Landscape, Rigel 7

Glass, copper foil, silver foil, pearls, pigment on gilded wood. In the private collection of Celeste A.Ramsay, Portland.

Cityscape

Glass, silver foil, stained glass scraps on gilded wood.

Landscape, Columbia Gorge

Glass, copper foil, silver foil, vintage pearls on gilded wood.

Red

Gilded glass and plastic on gilded wood. (foil/found stuff/wood)

Guadalupe II

I was raised Catholic. I am still working it out of my system. I like their art, anyway, especially the lady saints. And icons are a nod to art history.

Antique tin scraps, foil, glass, acrylic paint on wood.

Mermaid box

I made this recently. It is about 8" X 4", scraped the velvet off the top of it and used windshield glass and sea items.

Water

I started this whole gilded glass collagescape thing I do because I liked the way blue windshield glass glittered in the gutters of inner SE industrial Portland. (Now, it is all clean and Starbucks laden, so no more glass!) I was thinking about how, exactly, one would create the shine in a piece of art, and I lost a rhinestone from a button, saw the foil on the back, and my process was born. Well, first I had to deal with the trials and tribulations of learning to gild tiny little pieces of glass.

I like the blue glass very much, as when gilded with silver, it has the appearance of water. These two pieces are my attempt at capturing the serenity of backyard koi and lily ponds, like Phil's in Pendleton. The fish are made of thicker glass, gilded in copper, and the water has mirror thrown in for light and movement. The water lily pads are made of beer bottle glass, and the flowers are gold pigment painted clear glass.

Ponds are 24" X 36", gilded glass on wood.

A different kind of flower

An abstract orchid. The yellow glass is from a building in Pendleton, Oregon (no, I didn't break it, I never obtain my materials illegally), the thicker white glass is Trimet bus shelter glass, and I am not sure where the other random pieces come back.

This is one of the pieces that made me jump back and kiss myself when I created it.

12" X 12" gilded glass on wood

The Secret Garden

This was one of the best pieces I've ever done. 24 7" X 7" panels conceived to be a whole piece from the beginning. I showed this at the Pendleton Arts Center and at NAAU. This ended up in the private collection of painter James Lavadour. JL doesn't trade, so it was a big deal.

More of new flowers series

I've worked with flowers in the past, and will post photos of what those pieces looked like for comparison later this week. The new pieces feel more like candid photos, where as the older work looked like staged portraits. The new stuff is more organic, and not only because I am using various pieces of wood as the stems. There is more than one type of flower on each piece, I am no longer pathologically afraid of negative space, and I am making work purely to make myself squeal with delight.

This particular one is charming to me. The flowers are constructed from beads, broken pieces of vintage jewelry, windshield glass, sea glass and a broken beer bottle make up the leaves. Lately, I've been fascinated with things of all white, thus, the all white pearl flower. I am always happy when I create a flower that looks probable but does not exist in nature. I really dig the red sticks; I don't remember where I found those.

This is 7" X 7". Like a record, baby.

This is for my art

This is the new stuff I am working on. More refined flowers and utilizing branches from trees I pick up when wandering around the neighborhood.