I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—
the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there’s one other thing I remember,
and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:
God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!
I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He’s all I’ve got left.
— Lamentations 3:19-24 (MSG)
In my artwork I look deeper at the seemingly paradoxical views of finding hope within lament. We live in the culture of distraction and fear feelings of hurt and pain, but what we fail to see is that these dark moments of doubt and despair are the rich soil that is necessary to grow confidence and joy and is the first step toward authentic hope.
I am deeply inspired by the concepts of finding beauty and value in imperfection and impermanence that are found in both the Japanese art of Kintsugi and the Japanese aesthetic of Wabi-sabi. For myself, it is through the lens of struggling through severe auto-immune illness and chronic pain, the process of letting go and eventually embracing the imperfection of life as it is, that I came to explore these concepts. Being able to find the beauty in these themes creates a point of reflection of deeper value and identity and enables compassion for humanity’s brokenness and imperfection.
My working process is a intuitive prayer-like process allowing the materials as well as the subject matter inform and guide the process. Color, mark-making and wax all become the symbolic visual language of my creative spirit as it all collaborates with to tell a story. I use encaustic was as my main storytelling medium. The continual process of layering, fusing and scraping back wax becomes a series of metaphors. The continual building and taking away process becomes a push and pull as the idea works to unearth itself from deep within and the fusing process is a lesson in letting go and acceptance as the wax chooses the path in which it progresses as it is "refined" by the fire of the torch.
- Subject Matter: Abstract
- Collections: 18x24