Deep peace to you artist statement
On a quiet night, observing the moon high in a velvet sky is deeply awe-inspiring. What is essentially a huge lump of rock has a profound effect on our planet - stabilising our tilt, holding our planet in place, affecting our tides, stabilising earth’s climate, protecting ecosystems... If the moon disappeared we could face huge temperature changes and mass extinctions. But, hanging there is the night sky, the moon presents a solid and peaceful face to the earth. It does not trumpet its profound significance.
Inspired by the contours of lead calmes in some ancient windows, I start to put shapes and shades together. I haven’t an end in mind, but want a sense of peace in the composition and colour scheme. I choose blues and gentle curves. For some reason I’ve started at the top. Working my way down, I decide I want to suggest a huge moon - that constant, faithful and steady influence on our earth. I wish the earth, in every sense, the peace, profound faithfulness, and constancy of the moon. Deep peace of the quiet moon to you, planet earth.
Life will find a way artist statement
Do we ever really consider the earth beneath our feet? Do I take for granted the stability of the land on which we walk? We know that beneath the earth’s surface, great forces turn metal and rock to liquid. They surge and foment in unstoppable and sometimes destructive motion. Great land masses are pushed and pulled in continuous movement. If a blink were a million years, we would see the surface of the earth change. We would see colossal plates of rock being pushed and pulled across the planet's surface. Competing for space, rocks are pushed skyward to form majestic mountains, or pulled apart creating huge craters which become our seabeds and are filled by life-giving water. Life finds a way. Life always finds a way.
I am grateful that on the surface, where we live, there are places of apparent calm and stability. The earth provides these for us - places where her surface is stable and rock is firm. Places where we can safely plant our feet and build our homes. For stability of earth and firmness of rock, thank you, planet Earth.
Overgrown! artist statement
We recently relocated. During our first Spring we noticed, with delight, plants coming up in our garden that we had not planted and certainly could not identify. By the middle of Summer, our garden resembled a jungle - with each plant straining sky-wards to catch whatever sunlight it could. ‘Overstocked' would be a kind word to describe our new garden.
This piece is constructed using an entirely new process for me. Most of my work is very intentionally and uncompromisingly mathematical. I rely on the Fibonacci sequence while arranging my colours. Not so in this piece. I think this may be called ‘improv’, but I’m not sure as I’ve never done any!
The curvy piecing you see here arose out of a need to play, rather than work. It has provided many technical challenges for me, but it has been really enjoyable. The Fibonacci sequence is found widely throughout nature, determining numbers of seeds in seed heads, numbers of petals, the angles that leaves grow from a stem, measurements within shells, breeding patterns… Here, my piece, inspired by our garden, is made without any conscious reference to dear Fibonacci!!! (But who knows what goes on subconsciously inside my head…?)