MIXED MEDIA COLLAGE
"The Prairie Keepers" 15 x 30", Collage on canvas, 2024 $750
This experience of observing a bison cow giving birth in the Oklahoma Tallgrass Prairie Preserve was amazing. Another new mother and her calf waited with this cow as she birthed a new member of the herd. A coyote pranced out, inspecting the new family additions and I believe our presence thwarted any further inspection and it slunk off. This mixed media has big blue stem and sweetgrass seeds imbedded in the cow's fur, real grasses, oil sticks, and acrylic, with birds and prickly pear cacti. As keepers of the prairie the bison plant grasses with those seeds as they roll in wallows. A sparrow gleans seeds from a buffalo chip. All take part in this keeping of the prairie. Life ever moving, growing, and planting.
"Box Canyon Unboxing" Gray Hawk, 19 x 25", 2024 $680
Unboxing the memories and experience of the Arizona box canyon in April. A calling gray hawk and brief chuckwalla appearance on a rock ledge stage. Cacti of all varieties dot the shelves like a florist had arranged them just so. Mexican jays and orioles weave through the canyon canopy that spring day. Acrylic with plaster of paris texture on wood frame box, vintage boxes hold fiber and mixed media cacti, cheesecloth, map pieces of the area and texture mediums with collagraph textured paper.
"Raven Speaks" 16 x 20 Collage on canvas, 2024 $450
A conversation with raven in paper mounted on masonite, fabric, vintage items, ink art printed art. This talkative raven, with its nest near my home spoke of the trials and truth of parenthood and corvid life. Joker playing cards, antique lace, nest treasures, faux paper skull (with a jaw button to remind him to "button up") and twig nest all around. The monkey-like antics of these barrel-rolling, intelligent and humorous birds are a gift to behold.
(Available at AuSable Artisan Gallery)
SOLD - "Layers in the Telling: Mackinac Island" 16 x 20" Collage on canvas, 2024 $700
Assembled on masonite. Snapping turtle collagraph plate, driftwood, paper, fabric, R & F oil sticks, gold gesso, string. Turtles upon turtles, legend and life. From a faux loon feather to replica of the rubber soled shoes worn by island horses, this piece tells the tale of the Arch Rock and long gone Fairy Rock as well as the Anishinaabe Creation story of Sky Woman, her beaded necklace and the waterbirds that settled her upon Turtle Island. Truly an island of spirits.
"Knock on Wood" 11 x 14" Collage on canvas, 2024 $300
Pileated woodpecker family and forest life meet with paper collage and actual gathered wood chip gift, fern and oak leaf, dyed vintage lace, and fibers, on textured canvas. (Available at AuSable Artisan Gallery)
"Mountain Gems: Blue-throat on Nest" 11 x 14" Collaged mixed media and collagraph print on canvas, 2024 $450
This pulled collagraph print of my visit to the Arizona Chiricahua's has a collaged, life-sized blue-throated hummingbird (known as Mountain Gem) and gold thread wrapped paper nest of one I was fortunate to see while we searched for an Elegant trogon in the higher elevations.
"Island Home: Isle Royale" 16 x 20", Collaged collagraph on cloth, $580
A faux birchbark scroll tells how time goes so slowly on Michigan's most remote National Park, Isle Royale. This "floating" basalt rock is home to moose, loon, otters, Canada Jay, fox and boreal chickadee. I used watercolor paper and collagraph prints and vintage papers, oil paint sticks and acrylic with texture mediums to create this piece. The large moose often hidden and camouflaged by balsam fir and birch makes up the island famed for its wolf and moose population. The blue, green gray of the deepest, coldest Lake Superior waters can be calm in one instance then rage in the next. This least visited national park is a jewel and I remember her fondly.
(Available at AuSable Artisan Gallery)
