ARTIST’S STATEMENT

         

I continue exploring the possibilities of garments like the dress and jacket as metaphors for identity. The original “black dress” first appeared in a solo exhibition and installation at the Jersey City Museum called “The Book of Embraces” in 1995, after the death of my father, then again appeared in a solo exhibition at the Montclair Art Museum, called “More Than One Way Home” 1997, after the death of my mother.  I began thinking about using the image, idea, and object of the dress as a way of responding to life’s profound changes. Other iconographic images of memory, some based upon gender, race and history make appearances.  Images such as the hand, heart, birds, landscape, pattern, and nature make themselves known in the geography of meanings. The jacket has most recently appeared.  I also use varied detritus of mixed media as other creative voices along with more traditional materials. Sometimes the relationships are blurred, ambiguous, spontaneous, unexpected, colored and invisible—just as I have felt during the disquieting act of creativity. 

I am currently working on a series of works based upon “The Middle Passage”.  It is a suite of works that are part and parcel about my identity as a person of African decent.  I am more than “middle aged” now and am exploring the deep passages of identity.  If it had not been for those ancestors who survived the passage, then I would not be here.  This new work is about the pastiche of history, and spirit.

The hand appears, as do other signs and symbols, as a continuing source for inspiration.  Hands for me, as with the dress and jacket become more sources for expression—love, hope, healing, heart, spirit and identity.  Each image of the hand and garment like the jacket or dress, have their character.  Seemingly unrelated imagery may spring from many cultures, and meld with my personal iconography to speak a broader visual language.

The act of living creatively and spiritually is for me a work of art.

Perhaps a stanza from the Mexican poet/artist Alberto Blanco best describes the act of making art.  “Why So Many Forms?”:

                        Maybe at the road’s end all that matters
                        Is the splendor springing from a completed task.
                        The quantity of energy gathered in each work.

Also the words from a poem by Romare Bearden amplifies memories for me and the process of creativity

                             What is it?
                             I’m trying really to remember
                                  the clock has stopped
                             Now I can never know
                                  where the edge of my world can be
                             If I could only enter that old calendar
                                 that opens to an old, old July
                                         and learn what unknowing things know . . . .