mixed media

Windows

For the past several years, I have had a pre-occupation with windows, mirrors, and doors. This has driven me to create a series of altered windows using pourable resin, acrylic gel transfers, oils, and many other types of media which can be layered to present varied levels or transparency and opacity.

The windows  are all completely different, simply bound by their common media and technique.

for a slide-show of windows on black

Service

Occupation so greatly defines our existence, one of the first questions most people ask upon meeting is “what do you do?” My goal is to highlight the distinct separation of an individual’s personal life, their ‘real life,’ as a separate entity from their professional life, illustrating both the stark contrast of home to work, and also the blurred overlap that occurs when we become so involved in our job-based identity.

This employment-based identity is especially evident in service-oriented positions such as education, food service, construction, and medicine, where the service provided is intimate and somewhat necessary. Now, of course people can survive without education, though it is highly desirable in this day and age to have at least a High School degree or GED, but try surviving without food, water, shelter, and health care. And consider the fact that most people do not know the name of the person who re-roofed their home, served them dinner and drinks at their favorite restaurant, or took their kid’s temperature the last time they were at the doctor. Not to say that knowing someone’s name gives them an identity beyond their capacity for service, but referring to an individual by their name instead of their position is merely scratching the surface of the employment-identity enigma.

This project, then, will consist of two portraits for every subject: one in which the subject is in their employment environment, dress, and demeanor, and the other, in which the subject is presented however they would like to be, the ‘real’ version of themselves, against a neutral studio background to accentuate the individual and nothing else.

Glass Blocks

I am slowly plugging away at a large installation which is comprised of portraits of individuals important to me in my life, the transient and the permanent and everything in between.