My art is inspired by a freedom to play that I didn’t know as a child stifled by abuse. Architectural lines may seem as unforgiving as the bars of a prison on mind, body, and soul. However, in finding a different vantage from which to view or a different light to shed on the architecture, my works demonstrate that whatever the circumstance the human spirit, by God’s grace, may ever arise in inspiration, creativity, and life.

My adulthood play is enlivened by Julia Margaret Cameron’s pioneering, Danica O. Kus’ perspective, and Julia Anna Gospodarou’s impactful monochromes. There are so few female black and white architectural photographers that a Google search begs the question, do you mean men. However, through play and example, I find my own way through monochrome documentary and abstract architectural photographs with distinctive textures, tones, and perspectives.

Recently, I realized my attention to fine detail and the varying tones in black and white images began in my teenage hobby of sketching. Using #2 pencil and varying degrees of erasure and finger brushes and rubs and intensities of graphite edge, I sharpened my monochromatic ability “seeing” color in shades of grey. Drawing from the color image of a full-sailed schooner ship at sea calls for special focus to the nuances of depth, texture, contrast, shadow, and light and how to bring it into another life using only a pencil.

I bring that same focus to bear on every pixel of monochromatic photography, minutely going over both my documentary and architectural fine art pieces to develop my tenants of rich tonality, vivid texture, and creative perspective. Sometimes, imagining depicting the image from the point of a pencil aids my endeavor so even white has hues.

Earth’s green things delight me—identifying wildflowers, sauteing buttery dandelion buds, welcoming stowaway wild violets, grasping rich garden soil, and photographing flora lifecycles. Nature was haven from childhood abuse and is oasis amid adult responsibility.

Nature’s roots run like veins throughout my life and, therefore, art.

The only time I strayed from my desire for color growing up was as a teenager, sketching chromatic pictures such as stamps and prints into the shades of greys using #2 pencils. It is always the challenge in my of trying to portray color through monochromatic variety, then, by light erasure, touch, and the pencil’s sharpness and today through deepening shadows, contrasting, and highlighting.

Candid Covid Expressions are the unspoken feelings of life during our pandemic. Each work of abstract expressionism represents facets of this life. Contemplation out of the depth, Hope out of the belief, Inner Space out of the isolation, Dawn out of the clear sunrises, and sunsets, Artistry out of the art keenness, Remembrance out of the loss we were given meeting this moment in history.

Chewaukla Bottling Factory of Hot Springs, Arkansas boasted Chicago backers, state-of-the-art equipment, nationwide distribution, Chicago Tribune ads, renowned doctors, and a song from 1920/30s for decades.

Today, Chewaukla is not marked by sign, path, or map. It deteriorated and burned into shells of blackened gold and red brick and brackish mire of leaves.

Why note it? I knew almost no history before trekking to Chewaukla. I relate to the seen. After years of weather, time, fire, and wild growth it is without artifice. I am weathered bare by and of hiding trauma. Sometimes, in writing and photographs I stand as tall as the remaining chimney. Sometimes, as now, struggling through recovery from spinal surgery and pulmonary embolism. I am mostly broken.

A photograph of a people and building torn by war in a far-off country speaks volumes. We feel for those people, but we are not those people. If we are not in it, we cannot understand what those people feel. However, we draw near and connect with what we know of history of buildings in our backyards and an artist survivor before us. We see in these buildings the brokenness of time, weather, and disaster and we draw near to understand struggles from childhood abuse to Ukraine’s war. Then we see triumph through art overcoming the past and creating beauty from brokenness.

Time restores this land to the Sleepy Waters it once was. In time, God will restore me. For now, I live between these worlds where the woodlands are beauty, breath, and rest.

My black and white abstract studies of old, historical, often dilapidated architecture empower us to see the minute details of these buildings and our lives. I speak my truth to engage people to understand not just trauma itself but how it shapes how we think about the world in general. They are invitations for all to share their truth and make the unknown known.

In both art and trauma, no voice should be bound. All may be engaged by past, present, and inspiration of future.

Photos digitally manipulated into geometric forms, using rich color or color enhanced photos. My analytical abstracts and jumping off point for the rest of my abstracts.

Once, I passed barns without a glance. Now, I notice these ordinary structures for the extraordinary variety of architecture from unnamed architects and as stalwarts of the rural. When all else falls, these buildings stand.

The Honor Guard is just that--strength, endurance, steadiness against time and nature, holding the fort down for countless farms and ranches across Arkansas, United States, and beyond. They have always been assurance of safety, enduring long past use. It is a building plan passed down in history from one person to another. They are buildings that lack the esteem of an architect's name. Perhaps by noticing them, we become part of their history and heritage.

All these wonderful moving kaleidoscopes are birthed from photographs. I rejoiced in their birthing because in them I explored a lifelong love of kaleidoscopes. Every one of them has one element that is the same that creates the white in them--white orchid photo cutouts blended in.

I can’t tell you how many times in the past I passed barns without a glance. Now I notice these ordinary structures for the extraordinary variety of architecture from unnamed architects and for being stalwarts of the rural. When all else falls the barn stands.

The Roundup barns encircle to represent sheltering protection and endurance against the torrent of time and enclose and embrace in itself the landscape. They, like people, are both individual and part of a larger landscape.

These are all Arkansas barns captured in my haunts about the state as I scan ever back and forth, looking for gems to photograph. Some were easily found and accessible. Others I captured from outside barbed wire and no trespassing signs.

The pieces show well individually or together in 12” prints

My art is inspired by a freedom to play that I didn’t know as a child stifled by abuse. Architectural lines may seem as unforgiving as the bars of a prison on mind, body, and soul. However, in finding a different vantage from which to view or a different light to shed on the architecture, my works demonstrate that whatever the circumstance the human spirit, by God’s grace, may ever arise in inspiration, creativity, and life.

The Lodge series exemplifies my rough history, rich heritage, and vivid design. College Lodge rests on Petit Jean Mountain in the Arkansas Ozarks, USA. It was built in the 1920s through the efforts of YMCA and YWCA chapters of Arkansas colleges. In the 1930s it became part of YMCA’s Camp Petit Jean. At this camp you could spend the night in the kids’ shacks and tents or enjoy the luxurious boulder-hewn and rock-built College Lodge or “Guest House.”

Until recently, I paid little attention to this seemingly simple, small structure in its’ present day roofless ruinous state. One rare morning, I was at Petit Jean Mountain’s Stout’s Point photographing a rosy sunrise. As I was beginning to leave, I stopped to challenge myself to take this studio-apartment-sized ruin as far as I dare be inspired and to find meaning in architecture separated from me by a century of use and disuse. The Lodge became my playground and practice of vivid texture, rich tonality, and creative perspective.

At one time I secreted away my traumatic experiences, and it cost me. Today, writing and art are some of the means I speak up for myself and other survivors. Though trauma silences, art speaks. In both art and trauma, no voice should be bound by but all may be engaged by past, present, and inspiration of future.

Art has also freed me to play as I never knew how in a childhood stifled by abuse. The architectural lines with which I play may seem as unyielding as the bars of my youthful prison of mind, body, and soul. However, by finding a different view of or light to shed on architecture, my photography engages the truth that whatever the circumstance, the human spirit, by God’s grace, may ever arise in inspiration, creativity, and life.

The Old Mill ever engages present, ever remembers the past, and ever stands for those who will come. Most people come, especially in the spring and summer when blooms are happiest, to photograph the sculpture amidst its garden setting. I, however, was intrigued by what was within. The famous Rodriquez faux bois technique of shaping concrete posts and beams as aged wood, the windows that continually look toward a dawn that dances light in bright shapes from open windows and doors, the authentic 1800s grist mill handed down through the Cagle family at rest in the center, and a rainbow of shapes, textures, and colors of rocks in the walls. I came for a canvas against which to paint black and white in vivid textures, rich tonalities, and creative perspectives and unearthed the history of a sculpture and the men whose vision fashioned it.

To this day photographers come from far and wide to capture this sculpture among ever-green gardens in North Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. The Old Mill is best known for gracing the opening credits of the 1939 Gone with the Wind movie, six years after the The Old Mill’s completion. Nine decades later it remains a monument to Justin Matthew’s vision for the 1800s mill replica, “quietly [weathering] the years in the depths of its secluded valley,” Matthew’s friend, Thomas R. Pugh, whose “tireless energy” embodies the water wheel, and famed Mexican sculpture Dionicio Rodgriquez, whose handiwork stands the test of time and art.

Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, US is one of three glass chapels in Arkansas.

This chapel rises 48 feet into the sky with over 6,000 square feet of glass and 425 windows. The chapel is made with all organic materials to fit its natural setting. The only steel in the structure forms a diamond shaped pattern in its wooden trusses. The building has a native flagstone floor surrounded by a rock wall. To preserve the natural setting, no structural element could be larger than what two men could carry through the woods.

The surrounding woods offered a quiet calm beauty and breeze-stirred trees are rest for my weary soul. However, Thorncrown Chapel was a beautiful gem amid it.

Its architect, E. Fay Jones, who was mentored by Frank Lloyd Wright, was recognized as one of the top ten living architects of the 20th century. Thorncrown was listed fourth on the American Institute of Architects top ten buildings of the 20th century.

The light play on these rafters among trees and amid seasons offers an exceptional opportunity to revel in rich tonality and creative perspective. By stacking the images, I achieved great clarity throughout that turns this marvel of architecture into a study of fine art and architecture alike.

While photographing Thorncrown, I had the pleasure of becoming an informal pop-up photographer of people's families and friends, infusing the building, images, and day with the diversity and inclusivity of the chapel’s walls that became a part of my memory.

Wildflower Paints blend the simplicity of wildflowers and the daisy fleabane layered in with the complexity of texture and brushstrokes of paintings.

I often photograph the wildflowers between breezes and in drenching sweat for stacking. They are from near and far but mostly as near as the “wild side” of my Brookside Dr or Boyle Park right in the middle of Little Rock, Arkansas.