June 2022: What Helps You to Remember to Breathe?

I’m really excited for my 1st newsletter! I’d like to begin by sharing with you how the artist within me emerged and what creating means to me, through my artist statement. I know how busy you are so you’ll only hear from me every other month unless something really exciting is happening. I promise future newsletters won’t be as long!

I am a self taught artist that began painting at the age of 43. Art came to me through illness. While I was learning how to survive and cope with debilitating pain, I received recurring messages to paint. I had no idea where they were coming from, especially having not painted since elementary school. Now I understand they were the antidote for my survival. 

As my health allowed, I listened to those messages and discovered a passion for creating and seeing life in a new way. Art allows me to breathe, to slow down, to be mindful, and to truly observe the world around me. I'm fascinated by the balance of light and dark and how a painting can transform in front of your eyes with a subtle stroke. This process reflects the balance of light and dark in our experiences and emotions. 

As someone who deeply feels the injustice and sadness of the world, I believe art has saved my life by reminding me to see the beauty and possibilities inherent in each of us. My work offers the viewer a moment of deep connection, to feel grief and suffering side by side with joy and hope. 

I use portraiture to bring awareness to the full range of our emotions through the faces of women throughout the world. My work gives us permission to live authentically by feeling every emotion, not just the few we’ve been taught are acceptable. 

As a Jewish white woman who was raised in the United States, I also focus on creating women of color as we need to celebrate beauty and womanhood outside of the box of whiteness. With all that we balance in life, nature has always been where I feel the most peaceful and grounded. As soon as I am within the trees, I feel my nervous system relax, my peripheral vision expand, and I remember how to breathe. In 2018, a paper birch tree called me to use a piece of her beautiful peeling bark as a substrate for a painting. 

Since then I’ve collected bark pieces, each of which are attached to experiences and memories allowing them to hold a special meaning. My work is very intuitive. It usually begins with an image of a woman that speaks to me for some unknown reason. Sometimes, the woman just emerges from the substrate, such as a design I see in a piece of bark or from a background I’ve created. The title comes after my work is completed. Something about the work sparks a memory, a mood, an unknown part of history, or a connection to a personal experience or material. I often find myself in a rabbit hole of research until it clicks and I understand the message coming through each piece.