At a coffee shop I overheard a young man ask his friend, "Where is our world going? What are our concerns?" My mind fills with images trying to understand these words. We are confronted by pollution, Global warming, death, disease and homelessness to name a few. We find images on television, in magazines, books and we hear the impact of these in poems and songs. I don't want to seem grand or to preach but it affects the way we express our feelings. My feelings and life are described and explored visually.
Artwork for me is filled with ideas. Religious themes juxtaposed with contemporary concerns and thoughts give life to my drawings. Images of angels, lifeguards, cakes, shoes and airplanes are filled with wide range of meaning and symbolism. A cake for example in one piece represents a characters soul. In another it stands for the structure of the patriarchal society. Artworks are developed from symbols in the surroundings. One item or thought bumps the next creating a new direction and image, sometimes destroying others. In this dialectic process each drawing is an exciting experiment of color and thought.
In our world each person brings their personal baggage to a drawing giving it a different meaning or connections. I make these drawings not only to explore my concerns thoughts and ideas but because of their personnel relationship to a hope/connection to ephemeral ideas and concerns. There is so much going on around us that we will never be able to understand. We rely on technology to give us information, entertainment and commerce. How many of us could make the technology we use daily? As technology advances it requires a certain specificity in taking care of it. In an industrial society or agricultural a farmer would be able to maintain their equipment. Today though each part of a product comes from a different country. We are creating a global society. Someone who develops a jet engine would be unable to turn around and fix a satellite. Would you want someone who repairs a color copier to fix a nuclear reactor? I count on being able to get cash at the ATM. Satellites give computers mathematical information which is translated into information we can understand. We rely on these heavenly beings/objects in everyday life.
The computer has become a useful tool for expressing my thoughts. It expedites changing images, color, developing patterns, changing scale, duplicating. The computer allows for the creation of new tools and a limitless range for producing. I enjoy being challenged and asked questions about my work and processes. The computer is not only a useful tool for calculating scientific data, transferring information and discovering cures but for expressing a visual vocabulary.
