conceptual creative - working process
I love to conceive and create beauty in all parts of life every day: environments, moments, events and paintings that delight, enlarge and deepen. For me, life glows. And, to help make some kind of perceptual shift or insight for someone’s life perspective is my highest goal. To that end, my working process is founded on ideas of concept rather than subject. And “life as a journey” is at the very foundation of every concept I explore. Life is abundant with raw materials for art--endless intersecting/overlapping moments, insights, stories are all part of our greater journey. My process begins with connecting with a concept on an intuitive level. Letting go of the conscious, chattering, rational mind is the most difficult part of creating work. Therefore, finding the right headspace to create, through meditation, improvisation, breath, movement and listening practices are my most important tools. Then beginning with an exhale is, for me, the best place to be. I am comfortable with huge risk in almost any creative discipline, and regardless of the discipline that first “brush stroke” is an exciting leap on a new journey. Every time we create, we reinvent ourselves.
I take this puppet, which is myself,
and I toss it against the sky. ~Martha Graham
background
As a creative person I have deeply explored the worlds of dance, choreography, directing, devising, performance art, puppetry, music, and painting. In all of these artistic, creative worlds, concept and composition surface and re-surface. I automatically use conceptual and compositional elements from all of these disciplines to guide and inform my work: spirit, space, breath, body, shape, flow, topography, violence, repetition, voice, energy, color, texture, line, resistance and memory all surface and resurface in my process as tools that blur the boundaries and open doors for exciting, ever changing creative possibilities. I earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre and Dance from Mary Washington University; a Master of Science degree in Dance from James Madison University; and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Theatre/Devised Performance from the University of Colorado at Boulder. I have taught in multiple disciplines at various universities as well as professionally for 40 years. I am currently Professor Emerita at Fort Lewis College, Durango, CO. With numerous fellowships, residencies, and grants my work has taken me to develop specializations in S.E. Asian and Asian performance, puppetry, directing, performance art, devising and dance. Now I explore painting. I have created performance as well as taught throughout the United States, Italy and Indonesia.
