when Miles Conrad offered a 3-D encaustic workshop . Instructed to bring something 3D to dip , I crumpled brown papers , gathering and tying them at the top to form a bag . After dipping and pulling them out of the wax my brain did another ‘ click ’. These were the seed bags that my father hefted over his shoulder at planting time ! I got goose bumps , my brain roared with the possibilities . I know this , I lived this .
That Iowa horizon line and I collided again . It was then , in 2005 , that I started an environmentally focused encaustic art series . This medium brought me back to that Iowa farmland , embracing and gathering all the memories , textures , seasonal colors and history of life on a farm . When the years in between were added , the forms and images had morphed . It creates a new vocabulary . It poured out in my encaustic work .
Recycling
From a young barefoot girl , I lived , breathed and rejoiced in the natural world , observing how time can change nature ’ s colors and shapes into something tactile , rich and pungent with renewal . My journey took me from the farmland to the woods and lakes to mountains and deserts . I was a scavenger of dried plant forms , rocks , driftwood and discarded objects . I loved the daily challenge that these art-i-facts brought to my studio . How could these materials be re-defined , given a different context , a new story ? The process of art and object being , starting with a 3-D whirlwind in my head and then with my hands . I can ‘ see ’ how it has to be completed from the inside out .
Dipped Project , 2012