Exhibition

Finally! I get to show all of this work! The exhibit is up until June 13th.

Things with Wings

My last few weeks were beeswax obsessive. I have a deer project I am still working on, but this is one of the many small pieces dipped in beeswax. The drops on the wings get me pretty excited. BEESwax on a cicada, a buck made of BEESwax, what more could you ask for when it comes animals being sympathizers for each other?


A friend from the local bar brought me a hawk one Wednesday evening. I thought he was lying, until he and his kids walked me out to their pickup. I had one day to cast it, resulting in a not so perfect mold (seen below).


This is a porcelain wing from the mold.


As I hurriedly packed all my pieces, I couldn't not stop and take the image of many brittle baby birds snuggled in foam cut out for fruit.

Some of my favorite videos from Cub Creek

This colt was born in the summer. As the year went on I got to see him grow. By the time I left Virginia I could not tell the difference between him and the older horses from far away.


Like the horses, I saw these cows every morning and every night. To me, it seemed that calfs grow slower than colts. Calfs are funny and awkward. Their adolescent stage so well relates to humans as adolescents.
If you look among the tree trunks you can see the cows standing in the shade. The humidity is able to be seen between the hills. I think the excruciating heat is audible and able to be felt at the end of this video.


There is a peacock farm across the road from Cub Creek. The year and a half I was there I never saw a peacock until the last few days....I saw this one every day. He liked to hang out with the guinea hens. Here he is flaunting his feathers to them. I'm not sure if this is pissed off or flirting.

i love repetition. and contrasts. severities. hundreds, one, black, white. life.death. i have been casting snakes and deer legs, blindly. not knowing what the result will be, but loving the process too much to stop. then I went to post these images, for the sake of exposing the process. i think the 1st two are telling. they work well together. going with that will be my next step.






sometimes the simplest are my favorite. i was wrapping the dead baby bird in thread. orange, gray. and simultaneously wrapped a large sculpture in hoarse hair (thanks laurel), then wrapped the bird in one strand of the hoarse hair. to me this reads nurturing, maybe even mourning of one distinct species for another, contrasting most obviously in size.

The deer is finished!
Because of the plexiglas, his shadows play on the wall, an effect I hadn't thought of as relevant until someone brought it to my attention. (I'm going to try and get a better image with the shadows).


My studio grows.

A story from my childhood, written on a chalkboard. A porcelain squirrel, relevant to the story.


Baby birds and snakes. I'm VERY happy with the shelf of many birds, not so sure about the cluster of birds in the corner, how the snake relates to them, and the dark gray behind them. Working the details out as this body of work progresses.

I seem to have forgotten how important showing the process of making the work is. I was reminded this past weekend.

The porcelain deer you saw in earlier blogs was made with a plaster cast. I took a cast of the real deer. Because it was the summer, and animals rot more quickly after death, I was not able to get what I wished for: the entire deer. But I’m taking that as a blessing in disguise. His relief seems to be just as satisfying to me.


After bisquing (firing once) him, I covered the surface with graphite. This is the deer installed directly into the wall in my studio.(You can double-click on the photo to see it bigger and in more detail)


Realizing I was approaching the same installation issues as I always seem to, I decided to install the deer into Plexiglas, then install the plexi into the wall. I have a love affair with plexi so I’m happy with the results so far. You will see the finished product SOON!

All drawings of life are done with a black background, all of death, are on a white background. These  drawings are all of death, and though this dog is fairly decomposed and may be a gruesome subject, I hope for a certain amount of beauty and serenity to come through.


A detail of the dog.


This is the same deer that was depicted in porcelain. The composition is similar to all of the other drawings. He lays in the bottom, left corner of a large (30"x22") piece of white paper.






The bird, with a bit of graphite added.