ARTIST'S STATEMENT
I grew up in the South, a fact I tried to run from, hide from others and deny. I was embarrassed by the limited way I felt some of “my people” looked at the rest of the world. I felt that I too would be associated with the bigotry, “family values” and prejudice that were around me. I have since learned that I have a responsibility to answer to the things that I was taught. I also feel it necessary, like a calling—to quote my Baptist preaching grandfather—to respond the questions that the world around me refused to answer: questions about ethnicity, gender, sexuality and god.
Drawing, printmaking and painting allow my hand the freedom that my words were not allowed to have. As a woman, I was taught to be demure, graceful and charming…all things I fought vehemently, much to my mother’s dismay. Words were never what they meant on the surface, but had many hidden meanings. (“Oh, Bless her heart” sounds really kind but is actually derogatory, meaning that someone usually doesn’t have sense enough to come in out of the rain.) My work reflects the concept of layering meanings both literally and figuratively.
My work is a response to and a celebration of situation and location and how these things can affect the way one views the world. I use the figure as a metaphor for humankind and the sadness and beauty of living.
I grew up in the South, a fact I tried to run from, hide from others and deny. I was embarrassed by the limited way I felt some of “my people” looked at the rest of the world. I felt that I too would be associated with the bigotry, “family values” and prejudice that were around me. I have since learned that I have a responsibility to answer to the things that I was taught. I also feel it necessary, like a calling—to quote my Baptist preaching grandfather—to respond the questions that the world around me refused to answer: questions about ethnicity, gender, sexuality and god.
Drawing, printmaking and painting allow my hand the freedom that my words were not allowed to have. As a woman, I was taught to be demure, graceful and charming…all things I fought vehemently, much to my mother’s dismay. Words were never what they meant on the surface, but had many hidden meanings. (“Oh, Bless her heart” sounds really kind but is actually derogatory, meaning that someone usually doesn’t have sense enough to come in out of the rain.) My work reflects the concept of layering meanings both literally and figuratively.
My work is a response to and a celebration of situation and location and how these things can affect the way one views the world. I use the figure as a metaphor for humankind and the sadness and beauty of living.
