"Struttin' Their Stuff - Chickens and Friends" Coming to Artwalk Gardiner December 6th!

Coming Soon to Water Street Cafe in Gardiner soon!!!!!!

White Pullet  30 X 22 inches Encaustic

Chicken with Green  22 X 30  Encaustic

By the Barn  12 X 20  Encaustic

Hen Eating  5 X 5 Encaustic

Fast Food  10 X 10  Encaustic

With White Flowers  5 X 5 Encaustic

Standing Tall 5 X 5 Inches Encaustic

Returning to the Tent  12 X 20 Inches  Encaustic

With My Mama  10 X 10 Encaustic

Orange Fringe  5 X 5 Encaustic

Skinny Chicken  10 X 10 Encaustic

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.