Although paintings are done on a time continuum, like dreams they are outside of linear time. Some images come before the event they depict, and others are a portal to themes running for decades, journal entry, artist statement and insights from perspective over time. The images have been scattered through my abstract painting, small mixed media pieces and works on paper. Seeing them together is like lining up dreams or poems from several lifetimes. Over the years the themes and symbols incite new depth of reflection.
Samurai Bird
Late one night in Kyoto at a public bath in the entertainment area of Gion, in a beautiful old bathhouse a wall was constructed down the middle, compliments of American occupying troops, to separate the men from the women.
Horse Leaping with Hopi Rattle
Once more a spacious desert-like expanse, but this time, a net stretches to the horizon. This mysterious net connotes connection, but also emptiness. Could this net infer a game? The word tennis is said to be derived from the French “take this,” when one player would serve the other.
Divided Bathtub
In a dream, I am invited into a hot bath, with no way of entering the tub except folded up as if entering a funeral urn. The tub is supported off the checkered floor by four green frogs.
Three Fruit Ladders & Hopi Rattle
This image arose from a family journey through a Southwest Navajo reservation when our daughter was small. The inhabitants there wondered about my husband’s tribe for his extreme height and facial features.
Tennis Court with Pig and Fledgling
A jester kneels dressed in gold and black stripes from the dark corner shining a light over the net of a silver court. Court jester, holy fool and trickster is the only one to speak the truth to the king and get by with it.