Printmaking involves problem solving and I love a good puzzle.  When I use multiple techniques on a single work the puzzle can get quite complicated- how to print with one type of plate without losing the detail of the first and still be able to apply a third technique that requires a completely different set up? Looking at my art, sometimes it’s obvious the order of the layers but often not.

Pushing through the complexity reflects my struggle to process grief.  It helps me to reconcile how the unrelenting sadness of loss can exist alongside joy and hope.  As a result, I am drawn to opposites.  They can be as simple as using yellows and purples, complementary colors.  Other opposites are subtle.  I use imagery that suggests the idea of being earthbound countered with imagery that relates to suspension or to upward movement out of darkness into light.  My focus is to find or create a connection between these opposites.

The working definition of a punchline is “the synthesis of incongruity”, the point at which a cognitive connection is made between opposing ideas.  It is my belief that order will be brought to chaos, that we are part of a meta-narrative that will culminate in a redemptive conclusion, that there will be a point at which the Universe will have its “Oh, I get it!” moment and everything will make sense.  My work is a reflection of my struggle to understand how to patiently live in a physical, earthly state now while catching glimpses of the other world we long for.

My first blog post I wrote in September, just a couple of weeks before our dear son lost himself in skewed perspectives.  By the time the post was edited I just couldn't post it. I needed more than a reboot. 

By January, I had to decide whether to keep my commitment for a show in April.  I will always be grateful to the folks at Woolworth Walk who gently persuaded me to keep my agreement to be the featured artist in April with "just four pieces.  Can you do just four?"  It was the first step out of my state of shock. 

The show, "New Realities", was a reflection of a search for a new reality in the face of loss.  Many people have asked me for the written statements about the pieces in the show that I provided to those “who knew”.  I thought it would be appropriate to post them here with images of the work.  That being said, it is a really long post! I have edited them a little according to the present context: 

Eggs make me think of great potential as well as debilitating depression (as in the catatonic state).  Here eggs have a dual meaning of progeny and potential.  Six siblings interact, the 5th having a unique connection with them and with the spiritual realm.  Below there are obscure shapes that suggest a row of steamer trunks or even a row of tombstones.  I visualize prayer as an approach to the throne of God, kneeling before him, pulling a huge old, old trunk from underneath.  The trunk is empty until I place the object of my prayers into it.  As I pray, I close the trunk and push it back under the throne.  The shapes of trunks then represent the multitude of prayers offered up for these sons and daughters I have been entrusted with and the transitory nature of the child/parent relationship, the brevity of life and our journey together.  The 5th trunk is darkened because that relationship has closed. 

This piece references Isaiah 42:3 “a bruised reed he will not break -”.  Frailty is represented by a feather among the dry grasses and gentle providential care by the warm arch and string.  I use string often to indicate the idea of connection, as with a timeline, or the idea of an intermediary tie between the earthly and the heavenly.

​This is what I remember thinking when I heard what had happened.  The four etchings, from top to bottom:  the news; my fifth child is gone; my gentle child; the child with so much promise; and finally an egg, implying potential but with debilitating depression.  That strip of paper is from the paper I made from the fruit and vegetable scraps over the course of “The Very Horrible Summer”, as I refer to it, when Zach still lived with us.  It became apparent that something was very wrong.  I made very thin paper from those scraps and here I have used the chine colle’ technique to attach a strip of it.

Water droplets on a spider’s web may look like pearls but dissipate in the light of day.  During “The Very Horrible Summer” we saw the pursuit of fleeting pleasures and ideals that would not last.  A treasure chest or a trunk, representing my prayers, is in the background.  The door to Grace is wide open and offering the foolish to drink deeply of everlasting water.

A bird builds a nest in hope.  An empty nest can represent, then, either hope or loss.  I think of nests as an interweaving of the seemingly insignificant.  Like a bird building a nest with bits of grass, twigs and found materials, the seemingly unimportant elements of human existence contribute to the final outcome.  The nest empty of all but a seed of an oak tree, an acorn, exemplifies the idea of loss of what could have been.

Moses blessed the tribe of Asher (Zach’s middle name and stage name) by saying, “You shall be a favorite among your brothers; as your strength, so shall your days be.”   Though that blessing was not given directly to Zach, it came true for him.  He was very dear to his siblings and when his strength ran out, so did his days.  In this piece there is a duality: the right hand of God catching the feather, representing frailty, falling from darkness into light and my right hand, my irreplaceable help, letting go as the feather floats upward.

​A schematic is a plan for an electrical device.  The schematic I have drawn and printed into the background here is also a plan.  I’ve recorded the most important events in my life in schematic form to allude to God’s providential interweaving of those events into the lives of my children.  It uses symbols from all manner of cultures as well a few personal symbols.   The nest with acorn is to suggest even my loss and the struggle that follows are under His care.  I experience a kind of emotional jolt whenever I remember my family before October 11, 2015.  It has been an unexpected struggle to have to remind myself that one family member is gone,                                                           not away to college or serving overseas but gone.

Once again the string, feather and dry grasses suggest frailty and gentle providential care.  The string indicates the idea of connection or the idea of an intermediary tie between the earthly and the heavenly.  Here the feather is in a box within boxes suggesting both emotional isolation and physical burial.  Anyone with serious depression has an overwhelming desire to escape.  “I’ll fly away.”  I have hope in the resurrection.

This piece also uses the very thin paper I made from vegetable scraps from the “The Very Horrible Summer”.  The two pieces are loosely sewn together with gold silk thread to indicate divine intervention as well as suggest the idea of the interweaving of events.

When a grieving person considers the life of the lost loved one, even small details can be recalled vividly.  These fragments are left, a poor replacement for the living person who formerly filled his or her life but the details begin to tell the whole story.  The lines and texture in the background, the nest, and the branches of the trees seem random and chaotic but there is order and that order will one day be apparent.  It will tell the whole story of all of us.

Rebuilding life after the loss of a loved one feels impossible.  It will never be the same but there will be similarity in the altered life.  Piece by piece each element of new reality finds a place. 

This little sculpture was inspired by the following lyrics to this song by Charlie Peacock:

The Harvest Is the End of the World
Album: Strangelanguage


Rachel, why do you weep?
Why do you bury your face in your hands?
Is there no one who would reach you?
Is there no one who understands?
 
There is no one to comfort her;
there is no one to comfort her.
For her children are no more
and there is no one to comfort her.
 
Rachel, why do you cry?
Why do you hide your trembling lips?
Are those tears stains on your brow?
Are those tears on your fingertips?
 
There is no one to comfort her;
there is no one to comfort her.
For her children are no more
and there is no one to comfort her.
 
Now and always,
Now and evermore,
Now and always,
Now and evermore.
 
I see angels in the distance,
In the distance, I see angels,
and their shadows fall like crosses on the fields.
Some are swinging low the sickles,
some are binding up the sheaves,
Some are sifting out the harvest yield.
 
Rachel, learn to join the angels in the harvest in the distance,
rising from your bed as from a dream.
In the feint and splintered line where the wheat field meets the sky,
you might find your sorrow made complete.
You might find your sorrow made complete.
 
Now and always,
Now and evermore,
Now and always,
Now and evermore.
Redemption is the harvest of the tears that came before.
Now and always,
Now and evermore.
 
All who sorrow with her, lift your heads,
You might hear the sound of Rachel gently weeping,
for the gathering is done
and her children have come home.
Whom she counted lost and dead,
now to find were sweetly sleeping
in the fields where angels have been reaping.
 
I see angels in the distance.
In the distance, I see angels
and their shadows fall like crosses on the fields.
Some are swinging low their sickles,
some are binding up the sheaves,
Some are sifting out the harvest yield.
 
Rachel, learn to join the angels in the harvest in the distance,
rising from your bed as from a dream,
In the feint and splintered line where the wheat field meets the sky,
you might find your sorrow made complete,
You might find your sorrow made complete.
 
Now and always,
Now and evermore,
Now and always,
Now and evermore,
Redemption is the harvest of the tears that came before,
Now and always,
Now and evermore,
Now and always,
Now and evermore,
Redemption is the harvest of the tears that came before,
Now and always,
Now and evermore,
Now and always,
Now and evermore.

Every couple of months I make a fresh start.  I like to call it rebooting.  My to do lists, use of time, habits good and bad get re-evaluated.  Forget New Year's Resolutions- I do this several times a year!  I "decide" to clean more often, to draw more often, to do more for others.  My priorities straighten up as I think about how brief life is and what I would be doing if I knew I only had another three years to do it in.
 
Over and over throughout the year I ask myself why I want to pursue art as a career and the answer is always the same: I don't actually WANT to pursue art as a career.  I just can't NOT. So, I say, if there is something you always end up doing no matter whatever else you try to focus on it must be a calling. 

I can't think of any time in my life that I wasn't making something and discovering meaning in it.  When I was asked, years ago, to make name tags for a women's retreat, all I could think of was how different we all are, yet as a group we complete one another... yellow, blue, red shapes to form hearts and hands...

I need to come up with a Reformation Day costume and all I could think of was how the world was changed through writing... an ink bottle... with a quill for a hat.

As a child, my drawings were heavy with meanings I couldn't articulate.  It's a bee in the bonnet, a jones, a calling.  A picture or form reaches into the heart where words lose meaning.  I have to make art because there is so much to say that there that I have no words for.
 
Reboot complete.