One of the most important parts of the art adventure for me, is the idea of staying as true as possible to my own visions and conceptions. It is the willingness to accept the images that come along with the most force at any given time.
During my life an artist, 30 years were spent drawing and painting women. Using images of women to express my experience of the world. In an 19th century art history course in my 30’s I felt I had found a home when learning of the Symbolists. I work in accord with the French Symbolist artist, Odilon Redon who wrote:
“All my originally, then, consists in giving human life to unlikelycreatures according to the law of probability…. putting the logic of the visible, at the service of the invisible.”
Continuing to work within a framework of Symbolism, what I create does not always appear to be related, one piece to the next. However, it all comes from the same motivation, to give the invisible, a tangible presence in the world.
When young, I generally began working from an emotion. As I worked, the image would gradually take shape. However, as years passed, ideas came to me in an almost a finished image. Changes take place as the work progresses, but from the beginning the image existed clearly in my mind.
As ideas became more literal, I did a series that I called “Cliché Paintings.” Women were suspended in space, as in “At the End of Her Rope,” and compressed between rocks, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” - in general putting them in unrelenting situations. In painting these I began to incorporate natural objects, twisted sticks and rocks.
During a residency in a rural area, I was immersed in nature and began to do still lives of natural objects without figures in them. I entitled the natural object paintings “Stark Still Lives”, consisting as they did, of only the objects and their shadows. The work contained sticks, twisted sticks, pods and thorns.
The nature work seemed to lead to the beginnings of a geometric direction which is ongoing. Remaining interested in geometric shapes and how color transitions through them. I group these geometric pieces as: “Faux Geometry”.
Many recent drawings fall into the “Invisible Loom” title. They are related to the geometric forms, but often connected with ribbon or wire. The metaphor of weaving together of family and general human interactions underlies this body of work. Straight-forward, knotted or Art remains mysterious to me. It involves the totality of a human spirit, a blending of thought, will, and of the senses. I have spent most of my life being held in its’ thrall. Even with my vivid imagination, I cannot imagine having done anything else with my life.tangled; all being woven together at some point in time.
1991
MFA in Sculpture, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
1989
BFA in conjunction with PAFA, University of Pennsylvania, PA
1974
4 year-Certificate, in Painting, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
1967-1970
Undergraduate Art Coursework, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
2018
1st Prize Works on Paper, Art of the State, Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA
1999
Valarie Lamb Smith Residency, PAFA, Newtown Square, PA
1974
J. Henry Schiedt Memorial Scholarship, PAFA, Philadelphia, PA
1974
Cecilia Beaux, Honorable Mention, PAFA, Philadelphia, PA
1973
Julius Hallgarten, 1st Prize, and Purchase, National Academy of Fine Art, New York, NY
Fellowship of the Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
InLiquid, Philadelphia, PA
Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA), Philadelphia, PA
2021
Art in the Storefront, Ambler, PA
2014
Faux Geometry, Schmidt Gallery, Goggleworks, Reading, PA
2013
Evening Doodles, Harrisburg Community College, Harrisburg, PA
1993
Sande Webster Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2024
Light Through a Glass Spring (with Emily Selvin) Courtyard Marriott at The Navy Yard, Philadelphia, PA
2012
Out of the Woods, with Karen Aumann, Goggleworks, Reading, PA
2000
Faculty Club, with Tremain Smith, University of Pennsylvania, PA
1995
Gross McCleaf Gallery, with Susan Headley Van Campen, Philadelphia,PA
1979
Philomathean Gallery, with James Brantley, University of PA, Philadelphia, PA
2025
2025 Art of the State, The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA
2024
215/610, Delaware Community College, Media, PA
Minimal, ART FLUENT, Online Exhibition
New Now VII, InLiquid Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2023
PAFA Alumni Show, PAFA, Philadelphia, PA
CFEVA Members Show, Upcoming in May. Philadelphia, PA
Eliana’s Custom Framing and Fine Art Gallery, Trappe, PA
CFEVA Celebration of Life and Art, Perelman, HUP, Philadelphia, PA
2021, 2020
CFEVA Exhibition at Penn Medicine at Radnor, Radnor, PA
2021, 2017
Montgomery County Open Studio, Royersford, PA
2021, 2019, 2015, 1993, 1992
Annual PAFA Fellowship Show, Philadelphia, PA
2020, 2018, 2009
Art of the State, State Museum of PA, Harrisburg, PA
2018
Neoteric Abstract, Limner Gallery, Hudson, NY
2015
Works on Paper, Alumni Gallery PAFA, Philadelphia, PA
Old Enough to Know Better, Philadelphia Women’s Caucus, Philadelphia, PA
for Art, Crane Building, Philadelphia, PA
2010, 1991, 1989, 1986, 1985, 1984,1 975
Alumni Gallery Show, PAFA, Philadelphia, PA
2006, 2004, 2002, 1999
Squirrel Gallery Fall Show, Newtown Square, PA
2003
Chester Springs Studio Member Show, Chester Springs, PA
2000
Summit Bank Exhibit, Princeton, NJ
1999, 1992
Annual Juried Exhibition, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA
1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995
Summer Exhibition, Judith Leighton Gallery, Blue Hill, MA
1991, 1988
Annual MFA Show, ICA Gallery, University of PA
1996, 1986, 1973
Annual Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, NY
1993, 1979
Small Painting Show, Philadelphia Sketch Club, Philadelphia, PA
1984, 1983
Women in the Arts, State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA
1977
Drawing Show, Miami University, Oxford, OH
2000, 1999
Ann Arbor Art Fair, Ann Arbor, MI
Bruce Museum Fine Arts Festival, Greenwich, CT
Bethesda Art Festival, Bethesda, MD
Arts, Beats and Eats, Royal Oak, MI
Birmingham Fine Arts Festival, Birmingham, MI
Wickford Art Festival, Kingstown, RI
Armonk Outdoor Art Show, Armonk, NY
