My Story
I began making art during a series of short-lived attempts at traditional careers. In previous lives I was a lawyer, a personal trainer, an editor, and a teacher.
One thing that all of these careers demanded from me was words. Each new job brought new buzzwords, new ways to communicate, and new confusions as people tried to understand each other. No matter what I tried, all I found was an endless stream of words.
After all this, I am tired of words. Words are inadequate to convey my experiences and emotions. They are unnecessary to express my character and intentions. The more life I experience, I am more convinced that all words do is obfuscate.
Still, I love a story. I love to learn about people. I love to see relationships unfold or to engage someone's imagination. When words are inadequate, I find that touch, gestures, and sounds will suffice to communicate many things. More complex events or feelings might be expressed in visual art and music, but in order to communicate the truth, you must put your energy and intention into every image or note.
I have done that here, and I hope that you can see me in these images.
ABOUT MY ART
Most of my work centers around scenes of the city, scenes of nature, and abstract images meant to convey a particular spirit or feeling.
City Stories, Nature Stories
The nature and city scenes are similar in that they capture a moment in time. Each image captures an everyday event that my wordless, observing mind found significant and wanted to share with you.
A lifelong introvert, I don't always feel at home around people, so I try to spend time in nature. Since I live in New York City, this takes some effort, but it's worth it to experience these quiet, wordless moments. With these image, I share the story of my experiences moment-by-moment, while attempting to convey the emotional impact of each event.
Story Starters
Sometimes you have a story, but you can't find the words to tell it. Sometimes there is no story, only emotion. Sometimes your story feels so unique to you, you fear others can only understand it when you place it within the context of their own mind. In these cases, how do you share your experience?
In my story starters series, I create abstract images from a combination of painting, photography, and digital art. In these images I manipulate lines, shapes, and colors to create an expressive, suggestive abstraction.
The viewer then becomes the co-creator of the art by identifying the characters or events that they believe are represented in the image.
Though I add titles to the works that suggest the emotion or story that I believe is conveyed in the image, I know that what they take from the image may be radically different than what I intended to express. By allowing my viewers to co-create this art with me, I voluntarily relinquish control to my fellow humans. I trust them to bring their honest experience to my images, and by adding meaning, allow the art to become something more than I could create myself.
On these images, I invite viewers to comment and share what story the believe the image tells, or what emotion it evokes in them.
SELF PORTRAIT SERIES
Everyone--artist or not--is constantly involved in at least one all-encompassing act of creation, and that is self-creation. While we may not have much true control in life, we have some measure of control over who we are and how we respond to the world.
For many years I did not understand that I had the power to shape and understand and create myself. I labored every waking minute to shape myself into who I thought other people expected me to be. Now I am learning that I do create myself, day in and day out, and this is a constant act of creation.
I am no longer giving away my power of self-creation in order to conform to my understanding of what others want. From here on out, I shape myself into the person I want to be. Here is my creation.
