Artist Statement

"I grew up pretty much as everybody else grows up and one day seven years ago found myself saying to myself-I can't live where I want to-I can't go where I want to-I can't do what I want to-I can't even say what I want to. School and things that painters have taught me even keep me from painting as I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to and say what I wanted to when I painted as that seemed to be the only thing I could do that didn't concern anybody but myself-that was nobody's business by my own."
-Georgia O'Keeffe

I feel this quote best describes my artwork and myself. I am a very private person. My art is done on a personal level. I make art from the things that I enjoy seeing, not what others want to see. If I show others my work, it is because I have accepted them as a part of my world. Sadly, I don't include everyone, just those that don't intimidate me. This is my shyness, and I feel that when asked about the philosophy and details of my work, it crosses a boundary of privacy that I do not always wish to share. As a child, I did not do art to impress people. When they liked it, I took it as a compliment. It seemed to please those around me.
I began drawing as a form of meditation and observation. What I have seen, felt, and imagined I translated into art; it became my therapy. My mother was my biggest influence in my art making. She used to sit down with me when I was a kid and we'd draw people and landscapes. They were very elementary, but it gave me a chance to calm down and focus my attention on something. I was a very active child and I had a short attention span. It's funny how much I've changed. My earliest memory of artistic expression was a time when I was in trouble for misbehaving, I was sent to my room and in just a few minutes I began to draw what I believed to be a masterpiece. I drew sad, crying, angry faces all over my wall. I was tremendously upset and drawing was all I knew to soothe me. I think this was the only time my art didn't make someone happy. My mom was furious, she made me clean the walls off, but not before I argued with her. I wanted to keep them there. I was about five years old, and had already sensed that these drawings were important and needed to be defended with valid statements. Of course, my mother did not see it that way, or maybe I did not defend them well enough to convince her. Nevertheless, drawing became my main translator of personal expression.
I have used other media to render my ideas, but they all seem related. Whether it is a drawing, a painting, or a photograph, all of my work deals with spatial issues. I use layers, lines, shapes, surfaces, and values to create ambiguous space. Ambiguous space is not clearly flat or three-dimensional; rather it combines both two-dimensional and three-dimensional elements. The unmodeled shapes are the two-dimensional, flat areas within my work. I want the viewer to move through the piece by following the lines, which vary as light, dark, thin, thick, straight, and curvy. Though not totally volumetric, the lines begin to reveal three-dimensional spaces. In the overall composition, the layers of lines and value changes create the illusion of volume. I choose to draw with charcoal to achieve a gradation of lines and values. The layered composition edits various parts of the objects to help to lead the viewer's eye into an illusionistic space.
My drawings are meant to manipulate the viewer's conviction of what it is they are seeing. Because of the ambiguous space, the image becomes ambiguous as well. One cannot fully figure out what the drawings contain, yet when one looks closer, one begins to see all the details, and that is when the object reveals itself. When I draw objects I use mirrors to help me construct this sort of ambiguous space. Whether I draw from a skeleton, driftwood, shoes, sculptures, or feathers, they are chosen to show the line, mark and structure the object makes. The skull is most appealing to me. The lines and shapes it makes are far more interesting than anything else is that I have seen. These objects have more life to them than what is first observed. The artist Georgia O'Keeffe had the same love for these bones:
"The bones are as beautiful as anything I know. To me they are strangely more living than the animals walking around-hair, eyes and all, with their tails switching. The bones seem to cut sharply to the center of something that is keenly alive on the desert even though it is vast and empty and untouchable-and knows no kindness with all its beauty."
I never state what the objects say to me, I just call attention to the realization that they are saying something. That is the mysteriousness of the objects and my work. The mirror helps me to see this.
Symbolically, the mirror generally represents something vain, or on the surface. I use the mirror as a means to recognize the deeper revelations of the objects. They tell you the truth of what they have become and what they are a part of. Here is where my work becomes complex. By placing the mirror under and/or around the object, I can see several reflections of the object, giving me the ability to draw many images within one picture plane. The mirror adds more lines, which become environments, and expand the work's sense of space. The environment places you within the piece as if you could travel through and around the areas. The lines leave the image ambiguous and mysterious, which complements the mysteriousness of the work's meaning. This mirroring is reminiscent of an experience I had with a landscape. One foggy fall morning on the lake by St. Mary's College of Maryland's boathouse I came across the most picturesque image. The lake was incredibly still to the point where nothing moved. Not one ripple of water was in sight. The lake had turned to glass or, more effectively, a mirror. The water reflected a perfect image of boats, docks, land, and sky. It was the most breathtaking sight I had ever seen. This image has always stayed with me. Doing these drawings gave me back some of that experience. The mirror is closer to nature than one might think. It represents anything that is reflective.
Traditionally, drawings are not looked at as final artworks. Drawings are thought of as part of the process of working out thoughts before a final painting, sculpture, or even photograph. I, on the other hand, would like these drawings to be looked at as final artworks. Drawings can be the most beautiful, intricate compositions in black and white, pastel, or graphite. Some of the most memorable are the sketches by Leonardo DaVinci, a traditional renowned Renaissance artist who studied science, technology, and philosophy in the sixteenth century. His drawings are preliminary sketches, yet he used his drawing materials so well that they describe texture, surface, light, and volume. The flowing lines in DaVinci's drawings not only add movement to the gesture of the objects, but they show the object's structure by line and value changes. His work is a great example of the use of lines and volumes alluding to volumetric space. Like his works, I have tried to use the materials to express the variations of textures, lighting, and lines within my drawings. Georgia O'Keeffe is another artist who has achieved spectacular effects with the use of spaces within their objects, as did traditional Chinese scholar- painters.
Georgia O'Keeffe, as I have quoted before, seems to have the same philosophies about art making as myself. Though I use Georgia O'Keeffe as an example now, I did not realize my work was like hers until recently. We have the same affection for the spaces and light evoked by the skeletons, driftwood, plants, and landscapes. O'Keeffe was a successful American artist from the 1920's to her death in 1986. Her paintings and drawings of landscapes and still lifes helped her win popularity and critical acclaim among colleagues and critics. Our work is similar due to our concern in expressing the space and form within our objects. By the use of abstraction, magnification, and cropping, our drawings evoke a sense of space due to their resemblance to landscape forms. Clam Shell, painted in 1930, magnifies the exterior contour of the shell, and allows the viewer to see a close-up view of the interior structure of the shell. The curves in the opening of the shell suggest the opening of a cave, while the swells in the middle of the shell hint at rolling hills. My drawings identify with landscape forms by the intermingling of line variations and negative space. Animal Skeleton Posing a Peacock Feather uses contour lines to imply gorges and mountains. Negative space, or white space, represents vast open areas of light or air giving the illusion of distances.
These same techniques are widely used in traditional Chinese paintings. They push the landscape to one side of the picture plane to open the area, which creates the illusion of space. Aside from the representation of space and form within Chinese landscape paintings, the Chinese mastery of materials and techniques has influenced my own work habits. With discipline and precision, Chinese painters control the placement, weight, tone value, directional movement, and quality of lines and marks. Likewise, I have needed to master my chosen medium of charcoal. Not only does Chinese philosophy place emphasis on control and mastery, it also emphasizes a spiritual connection to their materials and subjects. Traditional scholars such as Ma Yuan and Xia Gui were "united by a consummate mastery of the brush." They were calligraphers, which meant that they were also scholars. "To paint a bamboo, one must become a bamboo," is an old Chinese saying. It is tradition for the bamboo to be a metaphor to the scholar. Understanding the subject allows one to become one in the same as the subject. It is where the scholar can demonstrate extreme skills and talent. Remarkably O'Keeffe has the same attitude, she has said, "When I paint I am trees," implying that she becomes the object through the act of painting.
The drawings that I am now doing are derived from my own works from last year. They were so successful that I wanted to see if I could develop them further. It is not as easy as it seems. I have been away from them for so long that I have forgotten what made them successful. It was not until I researched other artists both like and unlike myself, that I have found what was important to me. Like DaVinci's structural drawings, O'Keeffe's paintings, and Chinese scholars-painters, I emphasized line and marks to show the strength of the objects and the spaces within the objects. I am drawn to Georgia O'Keeffe's and traditional Chinese scholars-painters affiliation to what they painted. One must understand their objects in order to create the wonders the object holds. One then becomes their object. It is through my love and curiosity of my subjects that I draw them. I then have a better grasp and insight to their cosmos.

End Notes

1. Eldredge, Charles C. Georgia O'Keeffe American and Modern. Yale University Press. 1993, 201

2. Rewald, Sabine, and Lower Strokes Sims. Still Life: The Object in American Art 1915-1995. Rizzoli, New York. 1996, 146.

3. Sullivan, Michael. The Arts of China. University of California Press, Berkley. 1967-1999, 182.

Annotated Bibliography

Ades, Dawn. Dada and Surrealism Reviewed. Westerham Press, England, 1978.

Shows how Dada and Surrealism expressed political and religious philosophies. Gives examples of artists works and related their themes to the changes in society's ideals and life styles.

Ed. Bry, Doris and Nicholas Callaway. Georgia O'Keeffe: In the West. Alfred A. Knopf, New
York, 1989.
Lists plates and quotes by O'Keeffe. Is an essay by an acquaintance of O'Keeffe. This sums up her life and her travels. The author points out what is important to O'Keeffe and her influence on her.

Collier, Graham. Form, Space, and Vision. Prentice-Hall, Inc., New Jersey, 1972.

A book mostly about spatial dynamics in art. Gives examples and exercises to work on dealing with various art techniques. Lists various artists and their works and explains why they are in each category.

Eldredge, Charles. Georgia O'Keeffe: American and Modern. Yale Univeristy Press, New
Haven and London, 1993.

A short biography about Georgia O'Keeffe and lists plates of her work. Has several quotes by O'Keeffe about her works and why she chooses to do them. Gives us insight to her personality, philosophies, and her influence on others.

Jencks, Charles. Post-Modernism: The New Classicism in Art and Architecture. Rizzoli, New
York, 1987.

Several chapters are put together to define what is Post-Modernism. These chapters explain the values, the metaphysical, narrative, and allegorical ideals in classical art and compares and contrast them to modern and post-modern ideals in art.

Jordan, Jim M. Paul Klee and Cubism. Princeton University Press:,New Jersey, 1984.

This compares Paul Klee's art to the ideals and works of Cubist art. Shows the relationship and influence of Cubism to Klee's styles. Styles range from Constructivism to abstraction, and shows how his 'post-cubist' period came about. The book analysis his works and places his work in chronological order to associate his work with his predecessor's works.

Koerner, Joseph Leo. Casper David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape. Yale University
Press, New Haven and London, 1990.

Detailed analysis of landscape paintings and of Friedrich's art. I used this to compare my own works to the idea of a landscape.

Quinn, Edward. Max Ernst. New York Graphic Society, Boston, 1976.
"A painter may know what he does not want. But woe betide him if he wants to know what he does want! A painter is lost if he finds himself. (Max Ernst)'The fact that he has succeeded in not finding himself is regarded by Max Ernst as his only 'achievement.'"
Documents Ernst's art and gives us an idea of his personality, by interviews and statements. It is a biography of his life.

Rewald, Sabine and Lower Strokes Sims. Still Life: The Object in American Art, 1915-1995.
Rizzoli, New York, 1996.

Lists many artists and their works. Places them in categories according to still life genres. I focused on the Botanical studies and the abstraction category.

Schiff, Gert. Picasso: The Last Years 1963-1973. George Braziller, Inc., New York, 1983.

Gives a critical assessment of the final decade of Picasso's art and life. These later works shows Picasso's private explorations with his outside and inner worlds.

Sullivan, Michael. The Arts of China. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los
Angeles, and England, 1967.

A time line of Chinese Dynasties, focusing on their artists, philosophies, courts, scholars, etc. I specifically looked at landscape paintings, and focused on the artists purposes and reasons for their style, the Song and Yuan Dynasties to be specific. Talks about the brushstrokes and calligraphy according to the scholars and courts influences.

Talbot, William and Gabriel Weisburg. Chardin and the Still Life Tradition in France.
Cleveland Museum of Art, 1979.

Gave me a sense of traditional still life art (paintings), and how different my works were. Showed Chardin's artworks, and talks about his influences in the still life tradition.

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