Sunrise over Jacobs' Ridge

View from my parents back porch......As Thanksgiving approaches, I'm feeling a little homesick. If you pan to the left of the frame of the photo, you'll see a large, old strip mine.

No Evils, oil and wax on paper, 22x30"

Another of the moth series.

Lover's Eye Ring

"Eye" Miniature, 1790, watercolor on ivory

Unknown British maker, Collection of the Mint Museum of Art

I think this idea is fabulous---carrying a ring with your lover's eye painted on it....not so much for the suggestion, but for the sentiment. According to the Mint, this "vogue was said to have been begun by Mrs. Fitzherbert, the paramour of the man who would one day become King George IV of England." This has always been one of my favorites at the Mint; so tiny it's easy to miss. I couldn't find it on my last visit, so it must be in storage.

Dream Roses, oil and wax on prepared paper
location unkown

Another of the dream series...people often ask me where the rose images come from...so, here's the story: I was in my early twenties and stopped by a friend's party one evening. While there I received some unwanted attention from a man who just happened to be in a wheelchair. The problem wasn't the wheelchair, it was the fact that I just wasn't interested---I was pining for someone else, and, party guy was a sloppy drunk. But, his disability made me treat him differently...rather than brush him off like I wound any other sloppy drunk, I was too nice. I was patient when he tried to trap me in corners; I was patient when he tried to chase me to my car in his wheelchair (kind of humorous now--but frustrating then). No, he never caught me, but I was relentlessly chased. Finally, I escaped. The next day at work, two dozen roses arrived, along with a clear expectation that we were dating. So, what I was reluctant to do the evening before, I was forced to do---sever any expectation on his part. But I was disturbed by my initial reaction...why hadn't I done this (and been ruthless) the evening before? You can do it, and not be heartless. Anyway, I took the roses to my studio and pinned them to the wall--to remind me to be straightforward, etc. As the roses withered, they seemed to draw toward each other and form their own relationships. I began to draw them and consider them personalities. Eventually, they came to represent people in my drawings, and become comments on my own relationships. Dream Roses is one of the first of these images.

Dream Moth

Dream Moth, oil and wax on prepared paper
Collection of P. Kowalok

I read a haunting description of a moth being drawn into a flame in Annie Dillard's Holy the Firm, and moths became a motif for me. The voids in this image are from a dream....I dreamt I was in an desolate landscape; all I could see were these round, earthenware pots jutting up from the land. I spent the entire dream running from pot to pot----looking in and finding nothing.
I used to think about that dream a lot, but now I try not to think of it.

Remembrance of Things Past.......

Dead Flower, oil stick on paper, c. 1990.


While I will admit Proust was tough to plow through in college, and frankly, I didn't make it all the way through at the time, it has managed to stick with me all these years.....