Mixed Media

(Click on the images below for more.)

Many of the deepest parts of the ocean are still unexplored, a final internal frontier, easy to find, but difficult to reach. We are much the same way, able to be seen all in a glimpse, yet somehow containing immense undiscovered territories within our own small boundaries. Bodies are individual, but feelings link us into a vast network of experience, and we become larger than we are, one-in-many. Who knows what mysteries lurk in the depths, untold multitudes of secrets hidden beneath the surface we see? Like the ocean, we are all of us bigger on the inside.

Psychopomp

Whither goest, friend Mouse, and whence cometh?
What purpose bears thee?

I have pass’d through many places, and in each of them
Death is the faithful companion of mortals.
My boat is fill’d with souls, and I am ferrying them
through the waters of transition to what awaits on the other side.

What is’t, then, that waits?

That is a mystery for these souls, and not yet for thine.
But come, share a bit of my shortbread.

Wilt thou be short for the journey?

Though I keep the finest company, the dead eat but little.
Hast any message to send?

Undomesticated

As it is all but impossible to prove a negative, she has always left a little wiggle room in her view of “reality”. If she has never seen a thing, it is no reason to think she never shall, so she is rarely surprised by what, for other people, might be rather startling occurences. Truth be told, she is rather better at discerning “real” than most, and certainly better at believing what her senses tell her. Children have these skills, of course, but most lose them as they grow up and learn the art, instead, of seeing what they expect.

Once I've inked my subjects on bristol board, I colour them with alcohol-based markers, then use utility knives to cut them out. I create a mixed-media background on a birch panel, using art papers, metallic foils, natural found objects like leaves and flowers, recycled book pages, acrylic paint, naturally phosphorescent glow-in-the-dark powders, and a range of other materials according to the needs of a piece. Instead of sitting inside a frame, these pieces wrap around a 1-2" deep edge, giving them a three-dimensional aspect when hung on a wall and allowing smaller pieces to be displayed free-standing rather than mounted if desired. This part of the process is super fun - I always think of kids building sand castles, using whatever comes to hand to bring an imaginary world to life.