Red Riding Hood 2001

As with most children, I was familiar with the story of Little Red Riding Hood from an early age. Re-reading the story now--or rather Wikipedia's synopsis of the many versions that have existed over the centuries--some 13 years after I did the painting, I have to wonder what version I had heard or read as a child. Was it the more sanitized version, where Little Red Riding Hood is saved by the Huntsman and Granny released from the closet after the wolf is killed, or the tougher version, where both Granny and LRRH are eaten, only to be pulled out of the wolf's belly(alive) by the huntsman after slaying the evil canine?  Whichever version it was, I know that the underlying theme, for me, in this painting,  is about being fooled, and not in a good way.  In this painted photograph,  the figure of the wolf is a photograph of a man I know who is a devout fundamentalist Christian, of course, transformed by my paintbrush into the Big Bad Wolf.  The model for Little Red Riding Hood is a young teenage girl, who, to my way of thinking, is being taken in by the wolf.  He wants to consume her with his proselytizing, lecturing, and preaching, wanting to convince her that she is a bad bad girl who can only find redemption by believing and accepting the strange rules of a vindictive and spiteful God.

Sinus Trouble 1985

Nemesis:The Greeks personified vengeful fate as a remorseless goddess: the goddess of revenge. The name Nemesis is related to the Greek word νέμειν [némein], meaning "to give what is due".  Wikipedia 

..an opponent or enemy that is very difficult to defeat.  Merriam Webster Online Dictionary 

When I was in my early 20's I contracted a cold, got sick, felt bad, and then waited for the cold to go away.  It didn't.  It was my first encounter with what was to become my life long nemesis:  the sinus infection. With my bad math, I figure that I have had approximately 40 sinus infections since then. According to what I'm finding out about Nemesis, the Greek Goddess, her job is to dole out retribution, usually when people are a little too full of themselves, and lack hubris, needing  to be brought down a notch or two.  Her job is to keep things in balance, not letting people be either too happy or too sad.  

When I'm sick with a sinusitis my IQ drops by about 20 points, I have no energy, and I find it very difficult to do even the simplest of tasks.  I despair, I worry, I feel horribly sorry for myself.  I cry, I sleep a lot.  On the other hand, because I have this chronic condition, I have a terrifically healthy lifestyle:  I exercise, I get enough sleep, I meditate, I have a diet that has absolutely no crap in it. My studio is solvent free and I'm very careful about what I breathe. I've learned to lessen my stress, and  be kinder and more patient with myself.   I'd like to defeat this "opponent", but I'm not even sure what that means: is it learning how not to get sick in the first place, or does real defeat mean that I just accept and  live with my condition?  Whatever it ends up being, I would really, really, love to get this particular Greek Goddess off my back.

Woman with Black Hair 2000

Domestic Violence: Laws on domestic violence vary by country. While it is generally outlawed in the Western World, this is not the case in many developing countries. For instance, in 2010, the United Arab Emirates's Supreme Court ruled that a man has the right to physically discipline his wife and children as long as he does not leave physical marks. While in most developed countries domestic violence is considered unacceptable by most people, in many regions of the world the views are different: according to a UNICEF survey, the percentage of women aged 15–49 who think that a husband is justified in hitting or beating his wife under certain circumstances is, for example: 90% in Afghanistan and Jordan, 87% in Mali, 86% inGuinea and Timor-Leste, 81% in Laos, 80% in Central African Republic.^[7] Refusing to submit to a husband's wishes is a common reason given for justification of violence in developing countries:^[8] for instance 62.4% of women in Tajikistan justify wife beating if the wife goes out without telling the husband; 68% if she argues with him; 47.9% if she refuses to have sex with him.^{[9]   Wikipedia}

For ten years of my life, from my early forties to my early fifties, I played soccer.  It was not "the beautiful game" I played, but rather a group of people who hadn't played soccer as children wanting to stay fit and have fun.  During one of these soccer games I was hit, hard, in the left eye with a soccer ball. The next day, I woke up with an enormous black eye.  It took about a week before going away, and went from dark purple to green, to yellow green, then finally gray before I looked normal again.  What I hadn't understood, because I'd never been struck in the face*, was how my black eye would affect the people around me; grocery store clerks, people in stores, anyone I came in contact with that I didn't know.  They would glance at me, then immediately look away, not looking me in the face again. I constantly wanted to say, "It's not what you think.  It was a soccer ball!", but I never got the chance. My eye, or the reason I had the black eye, was the elephant in the room that no one wanted to address.  

At the end of this week, during the green to yellow green stage, I went to a tea in Santa Fe for photographers, museum curators, and people involved in the arts, all women.  Some people I knew, some I didn't, but it was my professional world.  Once again, I got the quick glance, the look away, then no more eye contact.  "Great", I thought, "Now the entire art world is going to think that my husband beats the shit out of me."  Finally, close to the end, Jerry West, a husband of one of the artists, arrived to pick up his wife.  Upon seeing me, Jerry said in a loud and exclamatory voice, "What the hell happened to you?"  It was such a relief to be able to tell him, in detail, about the soccer ball slamming into my face.  And had I been the victim of domestic violence, would Jerry have been the only person who cared enough to ask, or were people just too embarrassed and nervous to ask about something they had no idea  what to do with had the answer been that I had been struck by an angry partner?  What I thought particularly interesting was that in this group of strong, confident, liberal professional women it was the only man in the group who ended being able to ask about the elephant.

*As a young woman in my twenties, while hiking in Ecuador, a man I had started chatting with hit me in the face and knocked me down, hoping I would take him back to the United States when I left.  My screams frightened him away. 

Guard Dog 2008

Sanctuary: in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a safe haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a safe place for humans, such as a political sanctuary; and non-human sanctuary, such as an animal or plant sanctuary. Wikipedia

Late this morning, Fernando Delgado, a photographer here in Albuquerque, made a studio visit so that we could select work for a show that he is both curating and participating in called "Sanctuary", to be exhibited at the South Broadway Cultural Center in Albuquerque in April of this year.  He left with the understanding that I would select  work I thought appropriate to fit the definition of the show.  He made it clear that the definition was very broad.  However, after looking through my work, I realized that there was no sanctuary, or place of safety in any of the work I do, in fact, it's the complete opposite.  I could find lots of examples of unsafe places, but no "sanctuaries". Throughout the day, as I communicated back and forth with Fernando via email, we both came to the same conclusion:  my work, my studio, what I do, is my sanctuary.  With this in mind I decided the work that I would give to Fernando would be all self-portraits.  I knew that Guard Dog had to be included.  Not only is it a self-portrait, it's the me that's defending and protecting the very sanctuary that we are talking about.  Stay tuned, more to come, as I find and choose the self portraits to go to Fernando's exhibit. 

Girl with Crows 2014

I'm here at Anderson Ranch Snowmass Colorado teaching a three week immersive.  I thought I would use this collage as a didactic teaching tool for my students since I had spent the better part of the morning trying to find the perfect legs for the girl. Nothing would quite work, but I did finally find the right pair of legs, interestingly, one of the firsts pairs I had down but then I flipped them so the top was the bottom. I cleaned up my table  and organized the pairs of legs to show my students how many legs it took to find the right pair. I wanted them to see how difficult it can be to find the perfect elements to make the image really work. Of course, being obsessive helps.

Mother and Daughter 1998

Nothing ever changed my life quite as much as giving birth to a baby girl in 1987.  I'd been worried about the kind of mother I would be, and had put off getting pregnant until I was 35, and even then I just wasn't sure of what I was getting myself into.  But not to worry, one look at my black haired baby daughter and I was smitten.  Hook line and sinker, I was hers.

What I didn't know was that being a mother means that you automatically become an official grown up, no matter the age and it was obvious that I didn't quite get this part of being a mom.  Lipstick that isn't applied quite right, a too small, old lady purse, and giant black bosoms as if I had spent my life on a farm in Nebraska.  And of course, tiny, impractical high heels that can't really support the large bulk of a grown up mother-body.  However,  it's clear that this goofy "grown up" mother cherishes  the daughter standing next to her, and that the daughter, with her odd plaid outfit and little legs, understands that she is deeply loved. 

Man with Snake on His Head 1991

Both my husband's and my parents are in their mid 80's. One parent is doing pretty well, and  the others are experiencing different degrees of physical difficulty in their lives.  Each time the phone rings, we expect a medical emergency of some kind--or worse.  What I wasn't expecting was a call from a good friend a few weeks ago to tell  me he had cancer.  He'd had surgery, and was getting ready to start chemo and radiation-the full Monty.  He is a few years older than I am, never smoked, not a drinker, and has lived a  healthy lifestyle.  His cancer is in his throat, so the radiation will make it hard for him to swallow over the six weeks of his treatment, making eating and drinking extremely difficult.

"Man with Snake on His Head" shows the snake being both part of the man, but then not, and it's not clear if the snake is going to be swallowed by the man, or if the man is resisting, ready to bite the snake's tounge and head if he comes any closer.  It's important that the man not let the snake back in. He has to keep the snake at bay, no matter what it takes, even if it means biting the snake's head off.