Artist Statement

In the mid l980’s, I began experimenting with 35mm high-speed film photographing nudes. After showing these during a lecture at Brooks Institute, I was approached by a curator to present a gallery show, and my first response was…”I’m not a fine art photographer”, and my second response…”when is the show, and how many pieces”.  I jumped off a cliff that day, and spread my wings on the way down, and I’m still flying.
The central theme of my work is a celebration of the female—her spirituality and oneness with the universe, and a celebration of that universe, as I perceive it to be in my imagination—a magical place where I rediscover the dreams of my youth.  As a child, I was transfixed by stories and fables spun for me by my grandmother about the old country; my curiosity proved to be insatiable.  As an adult, I have used the creative process of photography to feed this fascination with myth and mythology and to lead me on a path of discovery.
My introduction to photography was steeped in the classic and pictorial style of the early pioneers, and I became enamored with the beautiful, but nearly lost art of the bromoil process.  Additionally, hand coloring, lith printing and the contemporary digital medium allow me to enhance and alter the straight photographic image to a subtler art form.  This journey both with subject and technique is a continuation of that insatiable curiosity.  My photographic vision is a very natural, simple approach, and I hope with enough subtle magic, the viewer is led into their own dreams and fantasies.  There is this wondrous love affair that happens whenever I play with the camera, and the challenge for me as an artist is to reach that subconscious awareness of the beauty and presence of spirit and soul.  I believe that a work of Art is an act of Love…Love for life, and Love for the creative process.