Coming Soon to Water Street Cafe in Gardiner soon!!!!!!
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| White Pullet 30 X 22 inches Encaustic |
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| Chicken with Green 22 X 30 Encaustic |
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| By the Barn 12 X 20 Encaustic |
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| Hen Eating 5 X 5 Encaustic |
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| Fast Food 10 X 10 Encaustic |
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| With White Flowers 5 X 5 Encaustic |
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| Standing Tall 5 X 5 Inches Encaustic |
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| Returning to the Tent 12 X 20 Inches Encaustic |
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| With My Mama 10 X 10 Encaustic |
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| Orange Fringe 5 X 5 Encaustic |
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| Skinny Chicken 10 X 10 Encaustic |
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A little background to my chicken works and other BIRDWORKS
My journey into "Birdworks"
started about eight years ago. I was sitting in a rental car in a New Mexico
parking lot with my dying Mother. She pointed out the window, “Look at those
birds. They are just so lovely. Here, give them my hamburger bun and let’s just
watch them.” As they swooped down for their dinner, their flying and fluttering
forms forced a moment of quiet and observation in an otherwise intense and
painful period in my life. Birds from
that point on became something else - a witness to life’s events and cycles,
portraits, commmentaries on life and relationships, and a generous slice of
humor.
Birdworks and chicken paintings alike have also become
explorations in developing a rich color experience and rigorous surface. Most
of them are created in encaustic (a molten beeswax paint dating back to the Ancient
Egyptians). The texture on these are heavy and many push
limitations of what painting is. Painted surfaces are created with a
variety of tools (from ceramic to dental:) and you have to work quickly
while the wax and support are still warm. I both carve into the wax
surface and build layer upon layer (some paintings have 30 - 50 layers
of wax). I also work with varying the heat on top of the surface.
Encaustic is an old Greek word meaning to "burn in". Hence, every layer
is heated into the one prior to create proper connections. I use a
combination of a heat gun and a torch to do this. My original interest
in painting chickens evolved from a colorful conversation with one of my
young students about her family chickens arriving in the mail.
