The world is not its best self is a project I made on 8 ½ x 11 inch sheets of white, buff and graph paper using colored pencils and graphite and digital images from sites around the world. I added Washi tape to delineate shapes and connect the separate sheets. I made seven columns of varying lengths from 22 inches – 44 inches. The text, like in my other works, is my extemporaneous writing where I am observing conditions in the world as I work.




 

The Mastermind y lo contrario is a collaborative livre d'artiste project with sections that can be removed and hung, sections that are made inaccessible with nickel-plated bolts, and a key/guide that describes the various kinds of marks and interventions on the pages. The substrate for most of the work is the original manuscript, The Mastermind, by David Unger.

Themes from the novel are mixed with commentary on psychological issues connected with the traits of a "mastermind" and how that relates to larger issues in life.



 

The work I made during my residency at MacDowell was a continuation of the project "Observations, errors, and corrections" where I used my surroundings as material for commenting on human experience. After making observations through writing and drawings, I reworked each section correcting anything I consider an “error”.

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The work I made during my residency through the Edward Albee Foundation grew out of my frustration with the condition of the floor - a surface that was made up of cracked linoleum and cement. I had thought I would be able to make large drawings on the floor but the surface was too deteriorated and uneven. I decided I would use the floor's condition as the basis for the work I would produce.

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The Jolly Balance was a project made in 3 different ways. The first was a series of drawings you can see here. The second is in the next project listing which was an installation and the third was a series of mixed media prints.

In the first part, I made the drawings on pages from a 1918 scientific journal that a friend sent me. The obsessive handwriting and detailed charts seemed to insist that things could be explained and controlled. I decided to look behind the procedural descriptions, taking words and phrases out of context to describe things that defy control, accentuating the humorous, absurd, and craziness of the human condition.

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This installation was based on a series of drawings I made on a handwritten physics journal from 1918. (The drawings are shown in the previous project.)
The Jolly Balance was a phrase I found in the original journal and refers to an insturment that measure specific gravity. I use it to refer to our attempt to balance all the parts of our lives on a day-to-day basis. In this installation I am writing about my mother's progressive memory loss and my research on Alzheimers. The drawings reference real and imagined parts of the brain. 

The installation is made on ledger paper my mother used when she was an office manager. Each column has a moveable section with some stiffened by applications of wax.

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This project was based on a series of medical procedures where I became both the observer and the object of actions out of my control. As the observer, I saw myself split into three separate parts: the rational, curious, thinking person; the sensory, tactile, physical being; and the feeling emotional, reactive being. These paintings depict these three viewpoints, using marks that mimic those experiences.

Click image to see series.