PLASTIC CURRENTS

My friend and local lobsterman sent me a stunning photo of the ocean he took from his boat. I transformed this image into a digital painting in Photoshop. At the same time I was working with a photo collage of the Perler beads my daughter played with as a little girl. At the beginning of my process, the Perler beads looked innocent and sweet, like pieces of sugary candy. When I combined them with the images of the ocean they transformed themselves into the representation of the forever bits and pieces of plastic present in the environment. As I worked on the image, I saw the ocean swirling and churning as if to expel the beads. As it does, it churns them into something more sinister; smaller and smaller bits, into the microplastics invisible to the naked eye, that are in the sand we walk upon, in the waves that crash tirelessly upon the shore, and the food we consume. It reminded me that it is important to represent that which can't be seen with that which can.

OUR DAILY PLASTIC

My friend and local lobsterman sent me a photo of his lobster cages. I became fascinated with the intricacy of the patterns and reworked the image in Photoshop with surprising color and textural results. At the same time, I was working in a piece called Plastic Currents, in which I used a photo collage of the Perler beads my daughter played with as a little girl. I placed the innocent and sweet, candy-like plastics over the cages to represent the microplastics that cannot be contained and are ingested and cause harm to the lobsters and other sea-dwelling creatures. The addition of the fork, spoon and knife patterned with computer code is a symbol of the increasing distance of the population from it's food source and the people who provide it, and visually expresses the ever-increasing amounts of plastics humans ingest daily.

WHAT'S FOR DINNER

I photographed a collage I created using kitchen utensils and reworked the image in Photoshop. At the same time, I was working on a photo collage I made with the Perler beads my daughter played with as a little girl. I placed the innocent-looking candy-like plastics over the commonplace utensils to illustrate how we often unknowingly consume plastics not only in our seafood and water but also in our fruits and vegetables, sugar and salt, and chicken and rice. I hope to encourage the viewer to consider the amounts of plastic in the food they consume and to consider limiting the use of plastics inn their daily lives.

What is the soundtrack of your life? What would it look like? 

I created this piece of art with the medium of memory, the mix tape, the medium we once use to record, keep and preserve. Through this work, one may examine music's role in the human condition and how the vessels for and the representation of memory change over time.

I created a three dimensional collage with the many mix tapes and cassettes that  I have enjoyed throughout my life. This piece was exhibited in a juried show, The Matter of Memory,  in Portsmouth, New Hampshire at the Portsmouth Historical Society. I was asked to create a print of the piece and after I photographed the art, I realized that there was more potential and experimented further with editing and painting the image with Adobe Photoshop. 

Humanity has chosen the heart to express its most precious emotion, love. Over the past three years, after the loss of my husband to a sudden heart attack, I have had many discussions about the heart, how it works, and why it fails. I no long see this muscle as a simple shape drawn on Valentine's Day but as an intricate machine that beats steadily to a rhythm, pumping blood to the beat of music and life and loss. 

My digital collage/painting TAKE HEART was created for this juried show using Adobe Photoshop. I used an image from my glass slide collection ad inspiration for my self-portrait and various vintage medical illustrations of the heart and the neuron images of Santiago Ramon y Canal as the starting point of my creative process. Te many photos I ave collected over the years from my favorite rose garden as well as the gif of a stunning bouquet of white roses from a friend were the references for my rose paintings. These disparate pieces came together to express my feelings of loss, grief and resilience. 

What is the soundtrack of your life? What would it look like? My cassettes are the memories of my youth, of parties with friends, lost relationships and love found. Their physical presence conjures the happy and sad memories of a lifetime.

I created this collage with the medium of memory, the mix tape, the Memorex, the form we once used to record, keep, and preserve. Through this work, one may examine how the vessels for memory change over time and what the tangible forms of memory will be in the future? Perhaps, one day we will be able to put our memories directly from our brain onto a chip?

How do we continue to honor those vessels we have? How much do we keep? How much do we throw away? Humans are always in the process of holding on and letting go. Often, a small object, a simple mix tape, made long ago, is the sweet reminder of the first bloom of love, his smile, a beautiful night with friends, warm summer days, and greetings from home when far away. I am so thrilled that MIX Tape has been chosen to be part of this fabulous exhibition. THE MATTER OF MEMORY will be on view at the Portsmouth Discovery Center from April 5, 2024 through November 4, 2024.