I'm sharing some of my favorite sales from last year from new and older series - along with some of the stories behind them. If you are interested in a commission or an existing work, feel free to send me an email through my contact form!
Homes for Indigos
Fera Space XXI, 2018 - sold to a collector in Los Angeles, CA
Indigo commission for a collector in Atlanta. Materials: indigo and bookbinding thread.
I’m grateful to have sold my work to a dynamic range of people this year (some of which I will never totally know!). Fera Space XXI found a home at the top of the year to a dear friend in Los Angeles and is hand stitched with gold embroidery thread. I always appreciated the movement in this piece and to me, it feels like a precursor to the glacial compositions I created later in 2020.
I love making the little indigo pieces (I call them my babies :D) and am sharing a few of the ones that found homes in 2020. 100% of the proceeds from the pieces on the second row went to the Abbott Institute, an organization in Brunswick, GA that works towards healing and reconciliation for people of all identities. They honor social justice and promote honest engagement in history to help us live more truthfully in the present.
Not only is this organization doing important work, but it was also heavily supported by my grandmother - who inspired all of my indigos.
I like to create my indigo work in large spurts - often fueled by a commission request. To the left is a commissioned work I created over the summer. The buyer opted for bookbinding thread and wanted the piece to feel more mountainous. Indigo commissions are always fun for me, as I make a range of different combinations before deciding on the final composition. I’m including some of the presented alternates and different combinations below (all of which have sections that were eventually used in other pieces!)
Dusk, 2016, Indigo, gold leaf and natural dyes - sold to collectors in Los Angeles
While a slight deviation from the works on paper, Dusk was a piece I created in 2016 that was one of my first experiments with indigo dye and other dyes on canvas. The piece literally made itself in my studio, as I poured pigment and let it sit over the course of many days. Once I felt happy with the result, I finished the piece by gold leafing the edges to heighten that feeling of dusk or golden hour. When the piece is lit from above, the gold emanates on the sides to create a larger glowing expanse.
I’m thrilled it found a home in Los Angeles!
Painting and Drawing Commissions
Rose, Oil on canvas, 2020
I don’t typically share commissions from family, but this one held a special place in my heart. My mom turned 60 this year and to commemorate her milestone year, my dad commissioned a painting that would honor both her and the women of her family. We decided upon an interpretation of the tribute they made to my grandmother the year she passed, during which they cast roses into the shores of Cape Cod that were symbolic of her love and presence. I decided to recreate the experience myself in the Pacific Ocean and became particularly interested in how the roses would be engulfed by the foamy waters, pummeled by rocks, yet still find their way back to the shore.
Source photo taken at Topanga State Beach.
People started gathering the roses that went further down the shoreline - some keeping them for themselves, while others passed them on to their friends. Social distancing was in full swing, but for a moment in 2020, I felt closer to the strangers around me as if I had shared something meaningful to me with them. I took hundreds of source photos and decided on a reference point that kept the rose intact, but also had it surrounded by the foamy waters. The final product was my own interpretation of the rose, the colors of Cape Cod/The Atlantic Ocean, my grandmother and her memory.
I also had a range of drawing commissions this year and am sharing two drawings I did to accompany an upcoming poetry anthology. While I can’t share much more details than that, I did find the back and forth process that got us to the final result very inspiring. The two images are done in response to key lines in two different poems and were created using charcoal.
Work from October - December
Automatic II and Automatic I, 2020 - sold to a collector in Los Angeles, CA
It is always exciting to see people respond well to a new series and equally as exciting to have that translate into a few sales to round out the end of the year. I discuss the thought process behind the two automatic paintings above in an earlier blog post, as well as the natural pigment painting below. All of the work is a response to my changing environment, anxiety and the United States as a whole.
She Left Behind Small Traces, 2020 - sold to a collector in Nashville, TN