2020 Sales and Commissions

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

Fera Space XXI, 2018 - sold to a collector in Los Angeles, CA

Indigo commission for a collector in Atlanta. Materials: indigo and bookbinding thread.

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

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

She Left Behind Small Traces, 2020 - sold to a collector in Nashville, TN

Glacier Series + Iceland Residency

Iceland’s landscape is an enigma to me. Although I have never been, I am drawn to it from a deep place in my psyche that I express through my art. In 2019, I set out to change that by applying to a residency program in Skagaströnd, Iceland - a small fishing village with a population of 500 - where I would use the landscape as sources of inspiration for my glacier drawings. Originally planned for May 2020, the residency with NES has been postponed until 2022 or until it is safer to travel. At the start of 2020, I continued to create glacier works as part of my own “residency” in my one bedroom apartment. Below are images from the series and an explanation behind the work.

Untitled Space VI, 2020, 30” x 45”

Untitled Space VI, 2020, 30” x 45”

I began my sewn paper indigo series in graduate school. Creating the work was intuitive and combining the dipped paper emerged from me effortlessly. I never thought of the pieces as specific landscapes, but only as constructs of my subconscious. I continued the series after graduating and found that viewers’ responses evolved as the work did. People repeatedly referred to them as glaciers, and I began to wonder why this happened naturally for me. I have never seen a glacier in person before, but I have consistent visions in deep mediation of glacial places.

In the wake of our climate crisis, and to further analyze my subconscious, I felt an unwavering drive to learn more about glaciers. When the icy structures melt, they buckle, heave and cry. Their cries remind me of places I have visited in my own despair, and their departure reflects the underlying theme of transience seen throughout my work.

The black and white drawings use multiple images of glaciers combined in Photoshop and then translated on paper. By combining images, I have the power to distort and skew the perspective on things that once were. 

We consume to fill a void. Instead of embracing the emptiness, we have to fill it until even our planet is robbed of its resources. Our fear of emptiness perpetuates this. I chose to work on black paper for the rich and ominous space it provides, as well as its connection to our subconscious’ void. White charcoal also felt like a natural choice, because it gives me a sense of analysis – my own hand developing a new understanding for what I am making. The series is stripped of color bias and any sense of temperature, leaving that up to the viewer’s interpretation.

Maybe my depictions of glaciers will serve as reminders of what we are losing or how future generations will interpret their imagery - a vague sense of knowing but never really knowing. As I look towards 2022, I know the scope of the work will inevitably evolve and I am open to whatever the inspiration Iceland’s landscape provides me.

Aerial view of Skagaströnd, Iceland. Image credit: NES Artist Residency

Aerial view of Skagaströnd, Iceland. Image credit: NES Artist Residency

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Experimenting with Natural Pigments

Title Pending, 2020, Pigments and clays from Sedona, Joshua Tree, Georgia and New Mexico, 56"x44"

My natural pigment paintings follow a similar sentiment to my “Automatic” paintings in that they also are about processing anxiety related to my surroundings and an increasingly tumultuous relationship to the United States as a whole. In an effort to reconnect with the landscape and the essence of our country, I gathered pigments from states along my recent cross country trip including: California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia.

Each state has its own nuanced ochres, as well as its own nuanced approach to our country's current crises. I have been making oil paints with the collected pigments and creating abstract paintings in response to the collective uncertainty felt across our nation. Below are samples from Sedona and the rocks that the pigment was taken from:

The process is a search for hope and my own place within this world.

She Left Behind Small Traces, 2020, 27” x 21” Handmade pigments sourced from clays, charcoal and ash throughout Georgia [sold]

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Working with Vibrant Reds & Flashe Paint

My two new bodies of work this month each feature heavily contrasting materials: oil paint made entirely by hand versus highly processed flashe paint. While both series are derived from the subconscious, the works using flashe paint follow a more automatic response to unresolved thoughts and images.

I have really enjoyed working with this vibrant red, as it effectively captures my own feelings of unrest perpetuated by 2020. September was a dynamic month with one of the more challenging parts being the fires that raged over California. I needed to work through a lingering sense of emergency and stress and making these pieces allowed me to do so.

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