i was away in the deep michigan woods when the olympics started, so i missed the opening ceremonies. my parents, who are both artists, were very impressed, so i checked out the still photos. i have to say, how stunning! i love the costumes and the color story that moves through the whole series of performances. and nobody does fireworks like the chinese, who invented the art form a few thousand years ago. above, a few standout images for me. more to see here.

my heady undergraduate days were all about art. i was constantly making new work and took every advantage i could to exhibit. before my BFA graduation show in 1991, i had already done seven solo exhibitions. my work just kept getting larger and i was blessed to have a private studio on campus.

this series of large scale pastel drawings followed the box pieces. they were massive for pastels, each around six feet tall and mounted with rivets onto sheets of anodized aluminum. the photo quality isn't good on this set of scans, it seems the slides were coated in fine debris. if i can figure out a safe, good way to clean them (blowing the dust off didn't work) then i will replace these with better images. in person, the surfaces were very smooth and luscious. i no longer have any of the drawings, sadly.

i remember well the process of making these drawings, i went into an almost trance state. the pure physical experience of rubbing, with my whole hand, the pastel into the paper surface was intense. it engaged my whole body, as these were so large scale. my chattering, conscious brain turned off and something much deeper and wiser took over.

alas, the titles escape me.

as a young artist working with installations and sculpture, i found my voice. the language of objects was one that i immediately understood. school year following my leap into installations, i started on box pieces. between my contemporary art history classes and coursework towards a minor in women's studies, i was discovering the rich place where academic study and artistic creation meet. i remember being influenced by artists like joseph cornell, joseph bueys and judy chicago.

i was also learning to talk, through my art, about the subjects i couldn't even put words to:  my childhood, my relationship with my body, sexuality. i've always loved layers of meaning in art, using found objects brought yet another satisfying layer of history to the work.

the piece at the top of this post is quite large, about 25 inches tall. i used bones to construct the star. below are two smaller box pieces (each about 8 inches tall) from roughly the same period. the last image is of a piece i still own and display after all these years, hence the better quality image. the rest of the images of older work were scanned from slides. sadly, i don't recall the titles of the first two pieces here, but i do remember that the top piece was about my brother and the one with the turtle shell was about my father.

all the bones and shells were found on nature walks.

this is the beginning, my first installation piece. it dates back to the summer of 1989, my first summer on staff at ox-bow summer school of art and artists residency program. i spent ten summers there in total and had wonderful opportunities to exhibit. my college art career up til then had been focused on watercolor painting, following my parent's footsteps.

with this piece, i leapt into my own.

it was intoxicating, blowing my own ideas about art away. i started making art out of the things i found, especially things in nature. what liberation to realize that art materials didn't have to come from an art supply store. i started shopping at hardware stores and farm supply places. i gathered objects in the woods and on the beach. that summer it hit me deeply, that everything was a potential art supply.

this piece still holds a very fond place in my heart. with it, i marked my territory. i crossed a threshold so exciting that i didn't return to painting for twelve years. the work is also very intimate, the beginning of a dialog with my body, through art. in so many ways, this piece is the very first time as an adult i truly made my work.

it came from a deep place, i remember that making and showing it felt like a risk. yet at the same time, it felt absolutely right.

each ball canning jar holds one urination, my own urination. i collected them for one month's cycle. for me, the piece speaks to personal ritual, to the tipping point between what we consider waste and what we consider beauty. it also speaks to my own relationship with my body and my falling in love with the beauty of the human body in all it's complex functions. i now really appreciate now how radical it was for me to go from making images on paper to making images that interacted with the light and environment. looking back, i am amazed at the brave twenty-two year old woman that put this out into the world without apology. and the color story in this piece still captures me, even after all these years, even after all i've done and seen in the world.

it's called infection.

the bread + butter etsy shop is now restocked and updated with all my silver affirmation ring stock. for a very short time i am offering these sweet little rings with custom affirmation phrases. i'll be taking orders for no more than 10 rings and the cut-off date for ordering is august 31, 2008. if you want more than one, just send me a message through etsy and i'll set up a reserve listing for you!

after that, the door is closed on this collection forever. yes, i am done. i've made about 600 of these babies in the last threes years and even though they put alot of good energy into the world, the toll on my body has become too great. each one is made by hand, not cast. each letter stamped one by one. i simply cannot do any more "mass production" myself.

so if you have been thinking about getting one, don't hesitate. really. do it now.

even though i have been home a couple of days, i still feel as if i was hit by a truck. it's a special kind of deep exhaustion after getting ready for a show and then doing the event. actually, just the rustic camping for 8 days is a challenge for this girl. add to that all the set up and tear down of a booth and six days of intense retail with thousands of people and it is a sure recipe for one weary artisan.

i'll be posting next week on my past work, primarily installations, so please tune in. there will be lots of interesting things to see and i am certain your vision of me, the artist, will greatly expand.