Spirit Comes Alive, series of 24 drawings
Watercolour, graphite, coloured pencils on tracing paper vellum
20.32 cm square I 8 in square
In situ, Hugo Burge Foundation Marchmont Estate, Scotland
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Graphite, watercolour, coloured pencils on 30% recycled paper
43.2 x 35.5 cm I 17 x 14 in
When the outside world seems unkind and chaotic, I look to create order. I find fascination in geometry, and comfort in the trees, the starry skies, roots, birds and textures. Drawing offers a contemplative, healing meditation of sorts
Series of 20 drawings
Graphite, watercolour on hotpressed paper
63 x 48 cm I 24.8 x 18.9 cm
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When thoughts, ideas, challenges, visions, imaginings and dreams all come together in conscious experience that is yours along yet strangely part of a whole.
Entanglement, entrainment, consciousness, awareness.
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All pages laid out
A work in twelve parts.
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Rumi Guides the Journey began simply as a way to produce a large piece within a small working area, with limited access to paper. This plan quickly turned from eight books to twelve in total, with a gap in between when I could not get the second batch of the same paper.
Imagine words from another continent, another culture, being so pertinent here and now. Imagine words so potent that countless contemporary musicians have set them to melody. Imagine finding comfort and solace in reading these almost thousand year old phrases of love, longing, and directives of how to struggle and thrive in life. For me, now, these pieces, the colours made from raw pigment mixed with nearby lake clay, represent a long chapter of struggle to find a way through nomadic movements, through uncertainty and loss, through a time spent in four countries with small, temporary work areas but where my heart is really longing for more full expression of creativity, as always, for home. In that search, I am mirrored by my inner boundaries, and echoed without boarders of the sky. I am home in every moment, as long as I remember to breathe deeply and love completely.
The abstract marks came first, with Rumi in mind, and then I chose stanzas from four different Rumi poems. So as not to present as a single illustrated design book, I arranged the lines so they would flow when the twelve books were read in order. This many months time span is scattered with moments of struggle and frustration breathing in tandem with deep growth and cohesion; I wanted this piece to become a reflection of some of what I was feeling.
A story in twelve parts, this piece is meant to be seen separately, then divided out into the world in parts. My idea is for each accordion book piece to find a home, then be photographed with the caretaker and subsequently seen as a whole even as it is divided geographically.
The selected lines are from the poems Special Plates, Enough Words, The Turn, and Quietness.
Ink, bio ink, graphite on sewn vellum pieces
Each piece 118 x 188 cm l 46.5 x 74 in
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There were dozens (hundreds, perhaps) of photographs of tree branches that I’d taken throughout my time in Wiltshire. And I have always had a connection to trees, to their presence, to the energy they exude -some more than others. I wanted to somehow tie this together into a large two dimensional piece in which the elements were seen but also a little mysterious. To this end, I organized all of my favourite branch photos and on individual pieces of vellum (thick, semi-opaque tracing paper) I used homemade and regular ink to translate each represented photograph. I spent many hours arranging the painted pieces, then sewed them together. Each of the two large sewn pieces has an underlayer which serve to give more depth to the abstracted story.
In situ, Mount House Gallery
Akin Uncountable, 2019
Series of four drawings
Graphite, coloured pencils, soft pastel on paper
Sizes variable from 152 x 120 cm to 165 x 120 cm I 60 x 47.25.in x 65 x 47.25 in
32 drawings
Graphite, graphite paint on paper
42 x 59 cm I 16.5 x 23 in
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For this series of thirty-two drawings, I used pressed botanical pieces salvaged from experiments with boiled prints to draw from, arranging them from top to end, creating an enclosed space. These contemplative drawings reminded me of staring into space on a clear night when you see a layer of stars, then another and another. The endless perceivable space contained by the objects within our periphery is the gap of unknown, the divine matrix or the dream state where the musical overlaps with the tangible. In some small way, these pieces represent those possibilities.
20 pieces
Boiled botanical prints with graphite & watercolour
19 x 19 cm I 7.5 x 7.5 in
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This experiment with boiled botanicals on cotton paper led to the series of drawings similarly titled Gathering the Gap (see next portfolio page)
Daily drawing practice
Graphite, chalk pastel on paper
Sizes vary, approximately 183 x 150 cm I 72 x 60 in
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This series of drawings speak to me about the rhythms of the sea, of growth on land, of living creatures; of humanity in connection to our fragile yet resilient natural environment. Linked aesthetically by the shapes of boat parts coupled with organic patterns and circles representing portals, they are my love songs to nature and meditations on my relationship with her.
Naviculam –latin derivative pertaining to boat, boat shape or diminutive of ship
Chorus –latin for dance or group of dancers
What the Sea Remembers, 2016
seven panels in total
graphite on paper
each panel 76 x 56 cm I 30 x 22 in
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A drawing in seven parts, this is a visual narrative of beauty in the details and of the falling away of all of those elements through time. Perhaps we are left to question what is at the end of what feel like frightening decline? Is that where we shall begin again? How do we view the demise of this beauty? Can we focus only on the beauty, the minutiae, the details, the possibility for re-growth?
What actions can we take; what actions do we take? Are we in the cacophony, or in the silence, or that liminal place between?
What the Sea Remembers with Desire Line, in situ at the Ranger Station Art Gallery, Harrison Hot Springs, BC, Canada