Lexicon: Conversation on Being
Mixed media on paper, 2010-2011
These marks are inspired by plants from my home in Northern California. I am called to dead seed pods, hairy poppy stems, Queen Ann’s Lace, magnolias because something about their linear potential - the way they’ve been drawn into life - resonates with me, with my own being and my own home on this planet. When repeated in a left-handed scrawl, the forms in nature function as a vehicle for a thought, or personal dialogue. However, the drawn and symbolic repetition becomes a riot of visual activity that visually buzzes to the point of suggesting sound. I interpret these drawings as scores for musicians, with color and value and placement indicating pitch, loudness, rhythm. Interspersed with text, the multivalent and musical quality reflects the fullness of a boisterous family, loud in the conversation of being.