"Femmescapes"

It was a wonderful surprise this past week to get an email query from a Mills College student about this piece pictured here called Nocturne. She is is helping to put together an exhibit from the collection of Lenore Pereira & Rich Niles which will open on April 14 in San Francisco. It is really delightful to hear out of the blue that my work is going to be shown publicly. Once a piece sells and leaves my domain, it finds a new home and depending on the circumstances, I may not even know where that is. This mixed media collage now dwells in some great company in a private collection focused on contemporary women artists. This exhibit, called Femmescapes, "explores the relationship of a woman’s place in the environment, woman as environment, and the environment as woman." It features artists including Ann Hamilton, Louise Bourgeois, Lisa Kokin, Ana Mendieta, and Kiki Smith - wow!

Nocturne was created in 1999 as part of my series Mapping the Body, in which I explored the emotions & experiences housed within the body. Here I layered kodalith transparency over sheet music (a Chopin Nocturne), torn paper and skeletonized magnolia leaves. Nocturne depicts that chrysalis state right before flight - the egg hatching and wings ready. While making this piece, I was thinking a lot about the experiences in life that crack us open - both the joyful ones and the very painful ones. That cracking can be quite uncomfortable, but ultimately yields access to a new territory within oneself...a new sense of self...a new internal rhythm or hum.

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and would like to see this exhibition, here is some more information:

FEMMESCAPES
An exhibition featuring work from the collection of
Lenore Pereira & Rich Niles curated by students in the
Mills College Museum Studies Workshop
Opening Reception:
Saturday, April 14, 2012, 6–8 pm
Exhibition Dates:
Saturdays & Sundays, April 15 - May 6, 2012,11am–5pm
Location: 70 South Park, San Francisco, CA, 94107
Learn more by clicking here

Image Info: Nocturne, ©1999, kodalith and mixed media collage, 13 x 11" framed, edition of 10 (sold out)