Artist Statement

The depiction of biomorphic forms has a long history in early 20th century art. Explored in Europe by Kandinsky, Klee, Gorky, Matta and other European artists experimenting with abstraction, their influence crossed the Atlantic ocean expanding the vocabulary of Dove, Hartley, Marin, O’Keeffe, and other early abstractionists. They made a visceral impression on me as a young art student at Bennington College .

I was conscious in the late 1960’s when I was beginning to find my ‘voice’ as an artist, of wanting to make strong art, an art that would express my ideas, my visions and inner feelings; an inner landscape, an art that would continue breaking the old stereotypes long held about female artists merely doing weak, pretty or precious work. Inroads which began to be made in the 40’s and 50’s into the ‘boys’ club of abstract expressionist painters by such women painters as Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Grace Hartigan, Helen Frankenthaler and others, gave me the confidence to explore a broad range of ideas and expressions.

I also found inspiration, support and commonality in the growing feminist movement and the writings of Simone de Beauvoir, Anais Nin, Betty Freidan, Kate Millet and others. These ideas found visual expression beginning with my earliest work in 1967 with my use of personal biomorphic imagery, abstract female forms, and often by using non-traditional art materials such as yarn, beads, embroidered material and family photographs in collage, assemblage and sculpture.