About Me

I am a mixed media painter and photographer with more recent emphasis on encaustic painting and encaustic photography. Intensely passionate about nature, it is often my primary subject matter. I find enormous interest in the colors and patterns nature offers us, from the drab mundane to the subtle grace of intensely sharp voices of matter that come through when you're not even looking or listening, We are timeless beings living a timebound experience and it behooves us to observe as deeply and profoundly this brief lesson and glean the meanings of the moment...look for the extraordinary in the ordinary.

My love for the medium of encaustic technique began as a beekeeper. I was searching for a way to honor the beautiful wax that is rendered when harvesting the honey. I came upon this ancient art form and fell hopelessly in love. There's something about working with wax that is indescribable, especially when I see a piece of work go from a viscous to a solid state, almost as if the wax is a living organism and you are giving it mobility, enabling it to participate...and it doesn't always behave, sometimes the outcome is unexpected, but then sometimes the outcome exceeds expectation. I like when this happens, it makes me feel like a conduit, a channel for the wax to communicate with me, it is my creative companion and collaborator and some days, we make beautiful art together. 

Another beauty of working in encaustic is the capability of usage: as a cross-disciplinary medium: you can incorporate collage, assemblage, sculptural applications, monotypes, photography and a wide range of mixed media. I am particularly fond of adding imagery and photography, thereby preserving time and memory. There is an ethereal quality to a finished piece that is embedded in lustrous, golden beeswax. Ultimately, there is so much opportunity for depth and dimension: there are continual prospects for diversity: waxing, scraping, carving, stamping, incising, embedding, fusing and layering. 

The substrates that I use when working with wax are generally solid and often made with recycled wood and found objects.