STATEMENT OF WORK

I began attaching plastic caps to some of my paintings in 2018. There are many “reasons” I did this, and one was that the impulse didn’t make complete sense. Freedom is important to me and healing doesn’t always make sense.

I started collecting caps back in 2000, around the same time that I hit bottom with a very problematic eating issue. As a means of recovery, I incorporated my discoveries about my own consumption into my work. I painted an enormous mouth with cavities about to eat chocolate cake. I amassed collections of plastic spoons, paper cups, sugar packets, pig figurines and about 14 large storage bins of plastic caps.

What startled me though, at that time, was the marvel I experienced when I slowed down my eating enough to witness my own hand-to-mouth movements during consumption - and what was in my hand - a product of ingenious human invention and design - the modern plastic cap.

The plastic cap is often discernible by its heightened design and color, and color, what might be a generative aspect of beauty, can actually unify in that moment of perceiving - and maybe this is also a clue to healing.

Painting outdoors brings me solace as I watch our environment go through irreparable changes. Like a lost lover I feel a desire to reach out, to connect to nature - to try to understand what went wrong in our relationship. Seeing plastics imbedded in the landscape, as I so often do now, furthers my desire to connect and heal, and we clearly need healing now on a very grand scale.

The idea of a Sherpa (the title of one of my pieces in the slides) is of someone skilled at mountaineering that helps others on their way up. Maybe a slow moment, a new way of seeing, a healing pause, a moment of connection to this beautiful earth can help us up the mountain.