As a visual artist for most of my life, I have been particularly drawn to mediums that change form and texture with heat and pigments. Encaustic medium, forged by heat and fire, transforms ideas into abstract and realistic impressions. My paintings, mostly inspired by botanical and landscape subjects, include the use of metallic pigments, oil sticks, alcohol inks, shellac and beeswax medium painted or poured onto a variety of wooden substrata. The materials lend themselves to endless possibilities such as scraping to discover layers, carving to define shapes and embedding various found objects and materials. The variability and vulnerability of using encaustic paint is challenging, exhilarating and exciting. Because the encaustic medium is in a molten liquid state for about two or three seconds, the time that it takes for the brush to go from the paint pot to the painting, it cannot be manipulated too carefully or too much. Skilled use of various sized torches allow me to manipulate the molten wax. Layer upon layer the image emerges with depth and translucency.
It is my hope that my art inspires each viewer to contemplate both real and imagined images. That each piece draws the viewer into a thought, a memory, or an image found in a pause, a moment of silence or through an extended pondering.