I am currently sitting in the Madrid airport waiting for my flight to London. The blog posts have stacked up in the last 10 days. Just as I predicted this past week was very full and went very fast. My mom was here with me for the last 9 days. It was really fun to have her along. But more on that later...this post is about my show.
Last week I had a solo show in the pueblo of the work I created this month. This is what I wrote about my work in the show:
This current series of work is narrative and personal. Each piece starts with the intention to record an experience - an encounter, an emotion, or a memory – the things that make us human. Maps or other paper items are often found in the paintings to trigger a memory or thought and are placed in the painting to symbolize a person or experience. In this series most of the paintings include a home. The home symbolizes the self and the paintings tell the story of searching for the safe, loving feeling of being home. For the last couple years I have been searching for self-acceptance and self-love thus building my home, my place where I can feel safe inside myself. But I have also been searching for places in this world where I can feel safe and be myself. So the paintings often tell one of two stories: the struggle to find my place of safety inside myself or in the world.
The paintings are all done in encaustics – hot pigmented wax. The wax allows me to create texture, embed paper, and carve lines to build up and unify the paintings. I have been using this medium for three years and feel it best communicates the emotions in my work.
To help transport you all to my show I made a video. The footage is from the opening and then I included still shots of each of the pieces in the show. Enjoy!
The week of the show I also taught an encaustic workshop. My mom attended along with three women from the village. They had a lot of fun playing with the wax. I taught them the basics of working with wax, inscising, collage, stenciling, and accression.
me, my mom, and two of the ladies from the pueblo