Professional portfolio

2018 – 2020 SURVEY OF MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES

INTERFERENCE

The global quarantine has caused a brand-new, uncomfortable mental space for both deep personal self-reflection as well as societal and cultural reflection. What unites us all is the shared experience of “interference.” Interference comes in many forms: media and misinformation, upturned social norms, disrupted routines, lives lost, job instability, and a rapidly changing climate.

Interference can manifest as the distraction and chaos that take away our sense of gravity. Or, it can also crystalize as moments of beauty and peace that take us out of that sense of chaos. To be alive in 2020 is to volley momentarily between opposites: overwhelming anxiety, paranoia, and fear one moment -- gratefulness, community, family and nature the next. Using Damask and Arabesque patterns, my new work explores the idea of perception, and challenges what is perceived and how it is perceived. This new work contains my photographs and color references from the Arctic Circle Residency, as well as floral studies from my Oak Springs Garden Foundation Residency. 

EVER FALLING FOREST

This work explores the fragility of nature as well as the ubiquity and life-long agency of plastic. Ever Falling Forest is made from sheets of translucent mylar. Over the course of four years, the mylar was hand cut to resemble blackberry brambles, an invasive species to the United States. Around the interior, painted white doves fly in a graceful, clockwise motion. The work is white to invoke a sense of ethereal melancholy for the loss of species around the planet. As the wind blows through the semi-outdoor atrium where it hangs, the piece moves and sways, sometimes shedding small pieces of delicate mylar. Held fast to a sturdy iron ring, the work embodies both the strength and fragility of the Earth’s ecosystems.

EVERYTHING IS FINE

For my Arctic Circle Residency project, the ship’s crew and I collected all kinds of plastic from the water, glaciers, and beaches that we explored. I shipped home fifty pound of ghost nets (fishing nets cut loose by fisherman). I also interviewed my cohort and crew onboard the ship, asking for handwritten letters that expressed the emotions people had while witnessing such rapid environmental changes in this wilderness.

Once home, I installed the plastic on one side of a wall to bring the distant reaches of plastic into perspective. On the other side of the wall, I installed the personal letters, which by that point had grown to include scientists, biologists, artists, activists, small children, parents, teachers, students, and more. Over 150 letters expressing everything from apathy to fear to adoration for the natural world lined the wall. I also installed photos of (upside-down) Arctic landscapes and 3D printed DNA simulations of some of the letters.

While the wall of plastic served as a stark reality check of just how far our consumption travels, the wall of letters and images served to open a door to human emotion. Individual voices were laid bare for others to read, reflect upon, and hopefully find a sense of empathy.

BRIÈVITÉ

These works were created while living in the Black Forest, near Colorado Springs where I grew up. I watched the return of migratory animals in the woods, collected insects, bones and wasp nests, and photographed birds. With these field observations, I created these works based on the fourteenth century Dutch Vanitas paintings that served as a contemplation of beauty, reverence, and the fragility of life.

In these works, I married the ephemerality of our natural world with the longevity of plastic by layering real objects and painted images in between layers of clear resin. When seen from different angles, layers of carefully applied paint appears to be growing on an actual wasp nest, and a real wasp sits atop a painted flower. By moving between real and imaginary, these works comment on this unique time in human history.  

STUDENT PORTFOLIO

OBSERVATIONAL DRAWING – MARK MAKING (PROJECT)

Students were instructed to practice mark-making, figure-ground separation, and various media. Students were instructed to compose a detailed contour drawing of at least 5 overlapping household objects, and then apply each of the 12 types of marks using a variety of media.

OBSERVATIONAL DRAWING – NARRATIVE STILL LIFE (FINAL PROJECT)

Students were instructed to produce an accurate, refined, detailed drawing using objects that captured a Narrative. I required students to make the narrative a self-portrait. Values, perspective, mark making, form lighting, professional completion, and personal symbolism was part of the assessment.

BASIC PAINTING – STILL LIFE IN OILS (PROJECT)

Students were instructed to set up an original still life with proper form lighting and overlapping objects. Assessment based on using a limited pallet, full range of values, proper mixing of colors, expressing convincing tints, tones, shades, and at utilizing least two complementary colors. This was an original assignment.

BASIC PAINTING – SELF PORTRAIT IN ACRYLIC AND OILS (PROJECT)

Students were instructed to photograph themselves for a portrait, and transfer the portrait using a grid. Next, the underpainting was rendered in Grisaille (greyscale values), and then finished with oils. Assessment was based on rendering of the gridded portrait, proper values in greyscale, and proper mixing of oils (both color and viscosity). No black paint was allowed. This was an original assignment.

BASIC PAINTING – EMOTIVE OUTDOORS IN ACRYLIC OR OILS (FINAL PROJECT)

Students were instructed to work from an original, personal photograph taken of a landscape. The photo could be from the past or present, but it needed to hold personal significance. Students were instructed to illustrate the emotions experienced in the presence of the landscape by using color and brushstrokes in a symbolic way. Black was not allowed to be used. Students had the option of mimicking the style of a famous artist who evoked an emotional quality to which the student could relate. This was an original assignment.

REMIX SELF PORTRAIT (SEMINAR: METHODS OF INQUIRY)

Students were instructed to create a self portrait by remixing the styles and concepts of three different artists. This example is from a student who served in the military. His influences were Ralph Steadman, Jim Mahfood, and Leonardo DaVinci. The left half of the work reflects the student’s military service, and the right half reflects his “messy,” artistic side.

CHANGES (SEMINAR: METHODS OF INQUIRY)

This assignment was for material investigation. Students were instructed to document (both photographically and in written form) the attributes of four identical objects in Part One of this assignment. For Part Two, students were instructed to subject three of the four objects to a series of changes. By cutting, melting, painting, or otherwise manipulating their objects, students learned the value of divergent thinking through process and material inquiry. Students were assessed based on creativity and documentation. This particular student is a US Veteran with access to ammunition as well as proper training in various weapons.

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