Artist Statement
v The
artist’s role in society, and the making of our work, can ~ at times bring joy;
other times, other occasions the work produced may be disturbing. It is my goal
to prod the viewer to reflect upon what is before them. The foundation for the
illuminated text focus on more potent matters. The objective is to have an
impact.
v When I was a child, a
third grade instructor, Mr. Abel, taught the basics of poster layout and
design. A junior high art instructor, Fannie Bufarlie, taught art theory and history
while encouraging me to depict what I “… damned well please …” when
making art. My mother ~ Mary Selma Evans ~ made certain I was able to visit
great museum collections, where docents and security guards would caution
against me standing too close while studying brush strokes.
v I learned the craft of
typography from a father/son instructor team, the Bonkempers, who made clear
that words, as well as images, were key parts to developing a visual oeveur. In
college, after studying grainy pictures of air bases, open pit mines, glacial
deposits, urbanized sprawl ~ I created maps of NY Finger Lakes region drumlin
fields. Afterwards, I managed prepress operations for commercial web press
printing and publishing firms; designed and developed materials for music
festival, posters and booklets for theatre festival performances’ handouts, interpretive
maps, illustrations, creating print materials for concert performances and the production
of regional publications. Worked for Northern New York regional planning
agencies with mapping, graphs, and typography.
v Some
influences that have trained my eye and how I think about making images:
v Freida
Kahlo ~ for her strong sense of vision, use of color and composition … and for
her tenacity.
v Rockwell
Kent, N C Wyeth, Kent Monkman ~ for scale, massing, vibrant color use and visual
story telling.
v Herb Lubilan
and the magazine U&lc ~ to understand creative use of type, lettering and
calligraphy.
v William
Blake, Alfred Waud ~ for exquisite detail illustrating narratives, and working
in ink and prints.
v Robert
Rauschenberg, Bette Saar, Philip VanBrunt ~ instilled a love of making collage
and combines.
v David
Wojnarowicz, Soviet Era collage artists and others ~ helped to capture social
protest on paper.
v I’m also a human rights
advocate, further affirming that we are all responsible to convey critical
ideals with and between one another, to the obligation to speak out about economic,
cultural and social injustices, and to identify paths to just resolution.
v I want to thank the
staff at the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health [PRCH], for the
opportunity to exhibit examples of my work here ~ including social issues
pieces and landscapes ~ intermixed amidst display from the agency’s permanent
collection of works of other artists already gracing these walls.
