Artist's Statement

In my professional career as a clinical counselor and coach, I share complex and intimate conversations with people.  We often start by assessing the issues as they appear on the surface, before scraping away these superficial layers to unearth the hidden colors below. This is how I understand the human psyche: it is multi-layered, complex, and malleable, because of our tendency to bury and expose memories, beliefs, and behaviors in different ways at different times. This understanding is symbolically represented in my work, as layers of wax are combined over time like memories, before being altered and removed to expose the raw history while simultaneously creating a new vision.

 

Just as with people, working with hot wax is inherently unpredictable.  Calculating the factors that influence the flow of the wax is difficult. The temperature of the wax and substrate are complicated by the ambient room temperature and atmosphere, which all impact how the wax behaves. Fully engaging in the medium requires an acute sensitivity to nuance and the flexibility to follow the flow. Similar to my other passions of cooking and music, encaustic art is time sensitive and intuitive, rather than something that can be fully planned.  Rarely do I set out with an idea or concept that is apparent in the finished piece, instead I find that painting is a contemplative practice comprised of multiple iterations of ideas. These layers are fused together over time and then partially scraped away to reveal the beauty of what lies beneath the surface.

 

Encaustic painting represents my understanding of life in many ways. While visiting galleries in Santa Fe about a decade ago, I was fascinated by this medium which was a complete stranger to me. Although I have always dabbled in the visual arts, my creative spirit has been truly unleashed since I discovered encaustic painting.