Drawing made sense of the world for me from the time I was a young child in San Francisco until I was a graduate student in Painting at UC Berkeley
When I started working with photography in graduate school, I looked for a way to incorporate the graphic quality of the image with painting and collage.
I work with the portrait , both of people and architecture, often in the context of urban landscapes.
In urban landscapes, I am looking at human spaces in transition. Due to gentrification and redevelopment, many buildings awaiting a makeover are covered in graffiti and multiple layers of paint, resulting in ” found paintings”. These layered wonders suit the process I work with, and become records of these neighborhood changes.
In order to combine painting with photography, I invented a process of printing the photographic image on clear film instead of paper, adding paint, collage or pastel behind the transparent film image. and on the paper below. This 2 layered process enhances the dimensionality already inherent in the transparent positive film.
I incorporate some of these painted images into salvaged architectural framing like doors or mirrors. De-silvered mirrors give ambiguity to the picture plane.
I did a project at Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, where artists with disabilities create the most wondrous work. I Created a large chalkboard wall where the artists drew images. At the end of the drawing, the artists held an extended shutter release in order to take polaroid self-portraits with their drawings. These became double self-portraits, because each artist’s drawing is unique.