Statements
Of Mice And Men
“The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft a-gley.”
This line is taken from Robert Burns’ poem “To a Mouse” and scarcely anything sums up my life experience more precisely than this quotation. It also is consistent with John Lennon’s quotation “It is life what’s happening to you, while you are busy making plans.” John Steinbeck found this theme relevant enough to dedicate a whole novel to it.
The inspiration for this series derives from a discovery at an antique shop in New Braunfels, Texas. There I found an enigmatic looking stack of cards, which magically attracted me. They were handmade and lashed together with a worn out string. It took me a while to find out what there original purpose was: They were created in the Thirties by an ophthalmologist for testing the eyesight of his patients.
In the context of this series these cards become a metaphor for “VISION,” a necessity that seems to be of existential importance for human beings. I also remembered this image of the little mouse, thumbing his nose, out a book from my childhood in Germany. Wilhelm Busch drew it, and I made an etching after that drawing. The mouse represents the FICKLENESS OF LIFE.
VISION and FICKLENESS (cards and mouse) are juxtaposed because of their intrinsic incompatibility.
The organic shapes stand for “LIFE.” They are a reference to Carl Blossfeld’s book “Archetypes of Art.” (Blissfield, whose work continues to fascinate me, was a German avant-garde photographer of the Weimar Republic.) These organic shapes now fatefully traverse the labyrinths, which are a metaphor for our CAREFULLY CONSTRUCTED PLANS. My research of mazes (labyrinths) took me from BC to the end of last millennium.
I experience a special “connectedness” towards my art when I work with my own hand made paper. The diversity of techniques and media used in this series underlines the diversity of our lives.
Visions
“ Visions” is my most recent work. Having the impulse to leave figurative, narrative painting behind me for now, I was trying to depict something non- objective that would leave more room for the viewer’s interpretation. My intention was to create an image that was enigmatically hovering in space, using the ancient technique of layering.
Music Interpretations – Paper Paintings
Visual art and music are both means of communication and both have been subject to my educational background.
Sharing many common parameters like rhythm, dynamic and scale they lend themselves for mutual interpretation. Music is an excellent vehicle for exploring various aspects of painting and vice versa.
- 1) In” Hommage a Piazzolla” I try to capture the melancholy of Tango, using predominantly the gray scale. I also observe the rhythmic pattern of the Tango (4/8). The blue and purple accents suggest the dynamical force, inherent to the Tango. Their shapes reflect typical contrasting movements: Jagged (staccato) and flowing (legato).
- 2) “Herr, unser Herrscher!” reflects the repetition of the distressed choral outcries “Herr, Herr. Herr!” (“Lord, Lord, Lord!”) Their volume differs, and so does the size of the triple columns reaching from earth to sky. In accordance with the somber and dramatic quality of Bach’s work, I choose mainly dark brown shades and strong contrast.
- 3) Underlying “Ravel’s Bolero” from beginning to end, the signature rhythmic pattern of this composition is introduced in the lower right side. From “pianissimo” to “fortissimo”, as the eighteen bars are repeated six times, the reddish hues become increasingly saturated and luminous, and the last twelve bars culminate in five dissonants.
All three works are 34” (H) x 45”(W). Due to the size and thickness of the paper and the mounting technique (the pieces float on foam core) the material is 50% cotton and 50% abaca for strengths, pigmented with raw umber. The painting was executed with pigmented, short fibered hemp pulp.
#1 and # 2 were finished with a coat of diluted clear shellac.
#3 is embossed and has a wax coat as a finishing touch.
The Duality of Roses – Series
One of the re-occurring focal points in my body of work is the rose. My fascination with this plant dates back a long time before I moved to the Rose City. Maybe it is fate, since I did not know about the city’s correlation with the rose before I lived here.
While living in Texas I struggled with the blistering heat to keep the roses in my garden alive, carrying the proof of their aggressive nature all over my arms and legs, so they would continue to reward me with their opulent sensual beauty and their divine scent.
In my work I examine the diverse stages of roses, borrowing their ephemeral quality as well as the metaphorical aspect of their paradoxical aggression and loveliness. In some of the pieces I incorporate rose petals in the handmade paper (“Questioning old Gertrud”). This work addresses vanitas. Others are drawings with thorns (“Thorn Blossom”), which contradict the loveliness of the rose in bloom. Another work (“Transitoriness”) contains all the parts of the rose .The “Rose Book” carries both, thorns and (velvet) petals. The watermarked “ La Vie en Rose” depicts the Purkinje cell, which is responsible for mutual attraction. In all of these works, including “Holocaust for Love Letters” handmade paper is an integral part.
“A poem” is a reflection on violence. Dainty little rose petals have been plucked and re-organized in the segmentation of three verses of seven lines each: Goethe’s “Heidenröslein”, which is considered to be a metaphor for rape. Each petal replaces a letter of this romantic poem conveying a bittersweet message.
In a junk store in, Junction, West Texas, I came across an original sepia photo of a young Victorian woman. Instantly she triggered my imagination. Her austere posture and facial expression spoke of untold stories and a mysterious destiny. The gender specific obstructions, oppressions, and limitations of the Victorian society were all written over her.
To visualize what I saw when I found this photo I felt compelled to approach the rose theme with the contemporary technique of digital imaging. The result is a series of digitally manipulated prints, “Thorn Woman”.
“Sub Rosa” is a 3 D work in pyramid shape that addresses the rose as an emblem for secrecy. This term is still used today by the military for clandestine operations.
Water Under The Bridge
(The San Antonio River Project)
The inspiration for this work derives from an environment that is very personal to me. I once lived close to the spring of the San Antonio River, the " Blue Hole." Its deliciously pristine water filled the swimming pool on the University of the Incarnate Word campus.
Being involved with the university ballet company at the time I often had the privilege to enjoy this sparkling gem under the shade of huge live oaks. Unfortunately the swimming pool does not exist anymore. But my walks along the banks of the San Antonio River with my dogs continued on to nearby Brackenridge Park. So did the hikes in the meadows that flank the river out there where the Spanish missions are located. Meanwhile it was customary to take guests downtown to the famous River Walk and show off the King Williams area with its pampered banks and adjacent gardens. Clearly, it is the San Antonio River that puts this city on the map.
Like all rivers the San Antonio River can be a metaphor for human experience, which begins pristine but is surely contaminated by "pollutants" as life unfolds.
- • At the river and sampled enough water from six different locations to make paper with it.
- • Onto the paper I made with this water I printed digital images I had taken from these locations.
- • The images then were mounted on background paper that had been exposed to the water from these various places on the San Antonio River (hence the curling).
- • The salient shape of the Blue Hole appears throughout the series as a reference to the river's once pure, untampered beginning. Other reference points are the test tubes containing the actual water of the location.
- • The series can be considered as a work in progress, since the long-term effects of pollutants in the water (used in the making of this project) are unpredictable and ever changing
It was intriguing for me to follow the flow of the San Antonio River while combining the ancient craft of paper making with the contemporary medium of Digital Imaging Manipulation, leaning on science to (perhaps) have the last word.
Call & Response
"Call & Response" was used as a chant technique for laborers, often slaves, to enhance their work efficiency. Its inherent necessity for reaction is applicable to political issues and their consequences.
This work examines the justification for actions not in terms of their basis in truth, but rather their consequences, both intended and unintended. While the graves of Iraqi civilians caused by collateral damage do not go unnoticed, so, too, we see the white gravestones at our national military cemeteries become more numerous by the day.
"Call & Response," two trilogies made from handmade cotton/ abaca paper with black pigmented cotton pulp, 18" x 20" each sheet, are my response to this very sad chapter in world history.
Border Hyphens
Found objects continue to intrigue me. On the U.S.- Mexican border they even become more interesting, since they almost always derive from different cultures. The banks of the Rio Grande and the adjacent arid semi-desert brush land from Laredo to Cotulla offer an astonishing array of these objects.
Once I held them in my hands, their storytelling potential motivated me to create a series of twelve assemblages in shadow boxes. They tell of "mojados," lovers, rangers, soldiers, pioneers, gunslingers and mineworkers.
Using 16"x 22" handmade cotton paper sheets (cotton as a Texan icon), I placed the found objects into a folded recess and mounted them with wire. In the context of "Border Hyphens" they act as tools of association.
Then I positioned other objects I associated with the found objects at the inner lower edge of the shadow box as an invitation to spin these untold stories. The rich, evocative potential of the objects stands in stark contrast to the almost minimalist execution of the series.
In "Border Hyphens" the found objects should be read as the connecting link between reality and imagination.
What Gravity?
"What Gravity?" is a series of suspended sculptures, accompanied by compressor painted images. This work clearly acknowledges the physical law of gravity, but nevertheless pokes fun at it while trying to wiggle out of its unavoidable certainty. Seedpods were the inspiration for this work.
I started this project with the intention of learning to cope better with aging, especially my own. It is my hope this work process helps me to embrace aging with greater serenity (and some aplomb).
The seven sculptures are suspended. Their size varies slightly but does not exceed three feet in height. The structure of the sculptures is copper tubing and steel. The skin is flax pulp.
Revisiting Renaissance Art
In an attempt to determine why I feel so strongly attracted to Renaissance Art, I made an experiment:
I completely abstracted the paintings from this period, focusing only on the compositional lines, stylized main shapes, and hues, since it was very seldom the subject of Renaissance Art that interested me.
I chose handmade paper as a medium and painted shapes and accents on it. The lines result from tearing up very thin handmade paper and mounting it to the mother sheet.
A thin layer of shellac protects and gives an ancient feel to the work.
“Of Mice and Men”
“The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft a-gley.” This line is taken from Robert Burns’ poem To a Mouse, and scarcely anything sums up my life experience more precisely than this quotation.
John Steinbeck found this theme relevant enough to dedicate a powerful novel to it. It also is consistent with John Lennon’s quotation, “It is life what’s happening to you, while you are busy making plans.”
The inspiration for this series comes from a discovery I made at an antique shop in New Braunfels, Texas. There I found an enigmatic looking stack of cards, which magically attracted me. They were handmade and lashed together with a worn piece of string. It took me awhile to find out their original purpose: They were created in the Thirties by an ophthalmologist for testing his patients’ eyesight.
In the context of this series, these cards become a metaphor for VISION, which seems to be of existential and practical importance to human beings.
From my German childhood I also remembered the drawing of a little mouse, thumbing its nose, from a book I dearly loved. Wilhelm Busch drew it, and I made an etching after that drawing. The mouse represents the FICKLENESS OF LIFE.
Vision and fickleness (card and mouse) are juxtaposed because of their intrinsic incompatibility.
The organic shapes stand for LIFE. They are a reference to Carl Blossfeld’s book Archetypes of Art. His work continues to fascinate me. These organic shapes now fatefully traverse the labyrinths, which are an added metaphor for our carefully CONSTRUCTED PLANS. My research of mazes (labyrinths) took me from BCE to the end of the last millennium.
I experience a special “connectedness” to my art when I work with my own handmade paper. The diversity of techniques and media used in this series underscores the diversity and complexity of all our lives.