Karen Bows Out

4th Edition. This piece came about accidentally. I attempted to fix this broken object and in doing so it became such a metaphor for the current racial climate we find ourselves in. The brush, i.e. a way of thinking, had warped over time, fallen apart, and created a divide that cannot be easily mended.

In its tragi-comic re-gluing, out of necessity, it needed to “bow” to have the two halves meet up, at least on one side. It speaks of a default white society and entitled liberal Karen needing to bow out to allow room for other voices and to allow for constructive repair. Funny enough, she still appears to talk out of her backside.

Tapada Americana

4th Edition. Ode to the Tapada Limeña, garment and political statement unique to Lima, Peru. Woman of all classes for nearly three centuries (16th through 19th century until the French occupation) used cloak (Saya) and mantle (tapada) to cover a their head and body to only reveal the one cycloptic eye. Not to be confused with its oppressive and restrained cousins the Burka or Hijab, “The characteristic attire of the tapada connoted insinuation, coquetry, prohibition and seduction game. However, it was still a dress: the saya outlined the hips and the cloak covered the head and face, except for course, a single eye. The tapada was a symbol of the freedom of Liman women”

What's on the Table

4th Edition. I recontextualize existing objects through their titles and highlight topics for discussion about value systems and stereotypes in the American Dream.

Reflections on Beauty

4th Edition. Inspired by Velazquez’s Meninas and my former faux finish work, this installation is a musing on the price and value of beauty and their standards in the round - front, back and center.

Mary Shelley

5 Edition: Conceptual. Feminist, Writer. Thinking about Mother Daughter duos as I navigate my own fraught misunderstood Frankenstein relationship through the meditative whittling process. It’s Alive! It’s Alive! It’s not about the thingness, but rather the intangible.

Mary Wollstonecraft

5th Edition: Conceptual Feminist, Writer. Activist. Mother daughter Duos with Mary Shelley. One of many mothers of feminism.

Emily Sartain

3rd Edition. Lesser Known Histories of Women

Artist, Educator, Activist. Philadelphia Native who came from a family of artists. She was the first woman artist to practice mezzotint printmaking in American and Europe.

Sartain was a passionate educator and feminist who fought for women’s rights.

Life's Little Unknowns III

4th Edition. A Tribute to all the unnamed child laborers past and present

Life's Little Unknowns

3rd Edition. A tribute to all the unnamed child laborers past and present

Back to the Future

4th Edition. A commission brush for which this is a one-off photographic piece referencing the painter Ingres and the philosopher Walter Benjamin. This is a springboard piece for a burgeoning conceptual series which investigates and illuminates the back side of (invisible) labor, value systems and ways of thinking.

Threading the Needle

4th Edition. Ode to my grandmother. As a child, I used to marvel at her meticulously threading her eyebrows with a particular brand of powder. She also worked in a sweatshop on Ross Alley in San Francisco sewing buttons and buttonholes. In a strange way, her job was making connections possible, much like my own work synthesizing disparate seeming materials and techniques. In work, life and in the meaning of this artwork's title, it was her ability to strike a balance and harmony in difficult situations, navigating racism and economic challenges with a sense of beauty and dignity.

4th Edition: Series addressing the pathos of the human condition

Caroline

2nd Edition. One in a Trilogy Ode to Ingres.

Comtesse

Commission for Art Star Consulting inspired by Ingres painting

Athena

3rd Edition. Commission for Imagery Winery 2017 Petit Sirah

The World is Your Oyster

2nd Edition. No pearl needed. This Vermeer inspired Paintbrush Portrait eludes to creativity itself and making something from nothing. It refers to the alchemy of humble dirt to magical pearls.

2 1/2

4th Edition.

Innocence and Child like wonder

Honor

4th Edition. Virtue and the Human Condition

Masako Shirasu

3rd edition series. Part of a series of lesser known women in history. A pioneer of post war aesthetics and design. Well educated in Art and Craft and noh theater. The Ray Eames meets Martha Stewart of her time.

Marion Mahoney

3rd Edition: Lesser known stories of women in history. The first employee of Frank Lloyd Wright who painted all his watercolor renderings and was the competition winner/urban planner with her husband for the city of Canberra, Australia

Musical Notation

Commission. Referencing the invisible labor and near invisible figures in paintings in the Western canon of art history.

Salamatu Bulama (Boko Haram student)

3rd Edition: Lesser known stories of women in history

Chibok (Naomi Adamu)

3rd Edition. One of the student hostages taken by Boko Haram in 2014. Naomi, 24 at the time of the attack, was the oldest of more than 270 students from the Chibok Government Secondary School for Girls abducted by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in April 2014.

Her classmates referred to her as Maman Mu, Our Mother. Her education had been interrupted by health problems as a child.

Rescue Annie

Part of a series of lesser known women of history. A late 19th Century suicidal Jane Doe found at the bottom of the Seine River. The expression on her face was so mesmerizingly serene and beautiful a death mask was made and sold to bohemian contemporaries like Albert Camus. She was called L'Inconnue de la Seine (the Unknown woman in France), La Belle Italienne (The Beautiful Italian in the states) but best known as the visage for CPR dummies, hence her informal name and the title of this piece.

Violet Jessep

3rd Edition: Lesser known women in history. The unsinkable nurse and survivor of 3 boat sinkings: The Britannic, The Olymmpic and the Titanic who when asked how she survived the Titanic sinking, said she was saved by her (big) hair being caught in the propeller.

Isadora Duncan

3rd Edition: Women in History across cultures and time

Camille Claudel

3rd Edition. Women in history. Painter and sculpture

Georgy Porgy Infanta

Part of a Special Edition made for Zoe Bios Creative

2nd Edition: Inspired by Old Masters Court paintings

Bloody Mary Tudor

2nd Edition: Inspired by Old Masters and art history.

Menina

1st Edition: Ode to Velazquez’s meninas.

Bad Habits

1st Edition: Series inspired by Old Masters Painters

PAINTBRUSH PORTRAITS (selections)

Ongoing Series (1999-present)
These works play with notions of re-forming beauty and value. I use humble, end of life materials inspired by my past experience as a faux finisher and Diego Velazquez’s 17th century painting Las Meninas. The paintbrush is self-referential, acting as both subject and object. It refers to the history of painting, through the medium of paint, using its own tool. These lady-like portraits are a playful strategy I use to draw the viewer into a more refined conversation about the nature of the work - in slowing down and observing the ordinary, however small, the most profound things are discovered.

The slow and repetitive pace of whittling allows me time to reflect more directly on the idiosyncrasies of each individual brush in relation to the entanglement of thoughts related to gender, class structures, and invisible labor. The action of whittling serves as a metaphor for reducing something to its core value or essence. These works pay homage to a sensibility and vitality found in the Old Masters’ works.

These are a selection of works from a larger body of work. The first two editions dealt solely with art history. My third series of Paintbrush Portraits highlighted lost, obscure and powerful stories of women across history and geography. The more recent ones have taken on a less narrative slant towards a more mediated translation of conceptual interests.