Layers of Reality
Layers of Reality Series is an ongoing exploration through the visual arts around the idea that there is no one reality. In my painting, these images began with the Ancestor Series, although I did not recognize the layers of reality, clinging to the one I was programmed to perceive. It became more apparent with Moon Drummer and Ring Master, as they manifested alternate realities through the addition of new materials. Thinking of it in terms of layered reality helps to perceive how they intersect in the moment. Within all reality, there are components of information, beliefs, memory, and history. Sensing into the stories, images, and archetypes beneath habitual reality brings awareness to the other layers.
Large Format Paintings in the Layers of Reality Series are composed of monoprints, various markings on tissue paper with cold wax and oil paint over acrylic images on canvas. The materials allowed different realities to emerge in different ways. In some pieces, another reality is discovered through the assembling process, while in others, obvious connections of content develop much later.
Mendicant Monk/Woman Warrior 2025
The first reality here is an acrylic painting to honor the ancestors and their unknown influences with an ardent bare-breasted woman warrior reaching for a sword. The next layer to emerge was the outline of a traditional monk, still seen in the streets of Kyoto, with a rounded hat and begging bowl. The over-layered images exposed the polarity of the assertive feminine and the yielding masculine. The materials allowed the two images to reveal each other. All these images invite stepping forward to experience the details close up. A different view than from a digital image.
Mendicant Monk/Woman Warrior 2025 acrylic, cold wax, monoprints, oil stick on canvas 60” X 36” X 1.5”
$9000
The first layer of this reality is a sweet red-haired woman. In the next layer, she looks out from a two-headed fox figure composed of road maps. While working, I heard bees humming, so I stenciled bees in the belly of the fox. Bees, messengers between the physical and spiritual realm, symbolize unity, personal transformation connected to renewal and abundance. The fox is a familiar psychopomp, running throughout my paintings. I do not interpret the symbols here, but let them work-me as I hope they work-you.
Fox with Bees 2025 acrylic paint, cold wax, oil stick on canvas 60” X 36” X 1.5”
$ 9000
Peonies 2025
Working from the concept of Haiku Mind had a surprising impact on how this work came together. The ancient poetic form of Japanese haiku is traditionally a tool of acute observation with a universal inference to “bring the moment into awareness”. The first layer of assumed reality of this painting is an ageless, kimono-clad figure. At the time of this painting, I was observing the short blooming cycle of peonies. The monoprints with their unpredictable outcome allowed me to play with the stages of the flower’s blooming. They found their way to the painting as a cycle of life/death/life. The process taught me to hold the initial seed in trust, the next layer of reality to be revealed.
Peonies 2025 acrylic paint, cold wax, monoprints, oil stick on canvas 60” X 48” X 2”.
$ 12,000
Kokopelli 2025
The first reality here is an acrylic painting to honor the ancestors and their influences. Repeated shapes in energetic patterns began to form a dancing figure, soon recognized as Kokopelli. This humpbacked flute player is a deity revered in many Southwestern Native American cultures. Kokopelli, the spirit of music and robust trickery, is mischievous and hard to pick out among the images of snakes and foxes.
Kokopelli 2025 Acrylic paint, cold wax, monoprints, oil stick on canvas 60” X 36” X 1.5”
$9,000
Fox and Dragonfly 2025
The original image, Fox on Gold, is an example of how the fox image has been woven through my work for decades. I carried this fox image with curiosity for weeks, asking for it to go down to another layer of reality. Yet I got nothing. After many encounters, I realized that it was the dragonfly that was somehow needed. I played with monoprints until I knew it was a very large print, which was needed. This brought home how a change of scale changes the relationship. With the change of size, the figures became more available and intimate to each other. Fox, forever the shapeshifter, has garnered access to the speed, agility, and mobility of a dragonfly in this juxtaposition.
Fox and Dragonfly 2025 acrylic paint, monoprints, cold wax, oil stick on canvas 36” X 48” X 1/5”
Diptych Landscape Pogonip
There are many overlapping histories in the local terrain of Pogonip, a word borrowed from the Shoshone language. A unique piece of land in Santa Cruz, California, that still houses one of the first women’s polo clubs and remnants of a huge lime industry. It is now also a camping ground for the many unsheltered. The emerging reality of this painting is Japanese Shinto symbols to purify the land and petroglyphic signs that are interpreted as healing the land.
Diptych Landscape Pogonip Acrylic paint, cold wax, monoprints, mulberry paper on canvas
2 X 36” X 48” X 1.5”
$ 10,000
Golden Child
This first image captures an aspect of my daughter—stoic, elegant, and commanding. At the same time, I see the innocent being that I knew as a child. The tableau at her left is a drawing at four she did of ‘train station’ which included departure points and arrival, echoing another layer of reality that can only exist in the moment.
Golden Child-acrylic paint, tissue paper markings 48” X 36” X 1.5”.
$9000
Dancer with Friends
The proprioceptive moment of ecstasy of a dancer at rest is augmented by a two-year-old’s drawing reflecting the same awareness and joy.
Dancer with Friends: 36” X 60” 1.25”
$8500
Shaman with Baby Dragon
Shaman delves in other world to bring back healing and information for the community. Children can also add much more if we value it. This shaman brings an orange baby dragon with wings, not as a symbol to be interpreted but as an energy spirit with which to interact.
Shaman with Baby Dragon-acrylic paint, graphite, tissue paper, and cold wax. 48” X 60” 1.5.”
$9000
Seeding the New Paradigm entails looking at beliefs that have blocked and blinded other possibilities without trying to judge or change them. Just being aware of core beliefs that have gone unexamined opens the door for new decisions. Not surprisingly, new points of view break down habitual patterns and unconsidered possibilities, resulting in Layers of Reality.