It's All About Me!

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This was my little studio in Boerne, in Old Towne. I have moved to a larger space, in Comfort, on the banks of the Guadalupe River. Please call me to come by for a visit.

I was an illustrator and graphic designer for twenty-five years or so. Then one day I noticed I couldn’t see very well. Just like that. Everything was distorted and a little blurry. If I looked directly at something to focus on it, it became an indistinct grey blob. Now what? I had Myopic Degeneration at 40-something. I am now officially what they call Legally Blind.

This happened one eye at a time, thank God. In 1993, when my right eye went, there was not a lot they could do. I was treated with a laser surgery that finished off my remaining central field of vision, but hey, I still had my left eye. No one mentioned that the other eye was likely soon to follow. That would have been handy information to have. Luckily, by the time I looked up one day in 2006 and all the window blinds looked like a Dali painting, medical science had made progress. A little. By 2007 I couldn’t see well enough to work in design anymore, and had to retire. So here I am.

I need to pause here and thank Dr. Venkat Reddy, the sweetest man I know in retinal care. He has done everything he can for me, and has been enormously encouraging and supportive. My other heroes are the people from the Virginia Department of the Blind and Visually Impaired. They were the ones who enabled me to go back to school and finish my art degree, and have encouraged me every step of the way.

Learning to see a new way, looking at life with peripheral vision and sneaky blind spots is an adventure. There are many blessings along the way. Stay tuned. Please feel free to leave comments.

My current work are meant to be seen as wired or dimensional portraits. Importance, they tend to reveal as much about the artist as they do the subject. Of course that was my plan. But as with all great plans, God mine anyway laugh Cindy needs me to some different place I need to go out. Paragraph how I got here. Drawing brings me waves of peace. But… I suddenly became Facebook the challenge of making art despite acquired vision on the Tatian‘s. There was no peace. I could no longer see easily or Clearly. I am a person who needs detail. My new blinds left me with none at all, and less I moved to within inches of my subject. So detailing a figure didn’t feel like enough anymore. I began to alter my materials trying to reflect my fracture and spotty site. I started tearing the paper disrupting the surface, adding elements. My work became very textural and tactile and I began including a little objects. I want to be no interference between the artwork and the viewing is on night, so I produced arctic couldn’t be trapped behind glass in the frame. Paragraph at the same time, in the process of making one statement about my subjects by drawing them, I became bothered that it was only one dimension of that person, And it was always so much more to tell. So I added another dimension with the small canvases. Nothing about that person I didn’t see right away, something small but significant. I added objects and icons that spoke to me about my subjects, sometimes introducing text or objects from their lives. The combination of the collage surface elements, the figure, and the personal objects work together to invite if you were to consider this subject from more than one viewpoint, both literally and figuratively no pun intended and any more tactile way. Paragraph the series was initially simply a way to tell a story about some friends all her hair look in their own special way. In the telling, I find out things about myself I don’t necessarily care to know. Ideas about fear, frustration, pain, and vulnerability, but also strength, hope, faith and recovery settle in, and I wear those while I work, and beyond. And I’m serving in drawing people close to me, I get to see inside just a little more and, I hope, show what I find. I cherish drawing because it feels so much more organic, intimate and personal then say, photography. It’s active and more selective than the camera or the brush. My favorite versions are very small gestures and details that make up of the hall, stillness and moments when no one is watching. Sometimes that’s what I get; sometimes I get something more direct. My heart tells me what to look for. Paragraph my work is very personal, influenced by music, other art, Faith, friendship, and every day observations and experiences and learning to live life on life‘s terms, out of self,A day at a time.