I have drawn the source of some of my ideas from photographs that connect me to time and natural history. Along the shores of Lake Michigan and near my Mother’s house in Wisconsin, is an out cropping of Devonian Limestone called North Point. It is a place that I often visit and I love the way that its appearance changes depending on the time of year and the rise and fall of the lake water. Pools of water with colored algae and cracks in the stone create different patterns. In some places the limestone drops off sharply into the darker waters of the lake. I take photographs looking down and along the shore line. Sometimes I look at the photographs as inspiration for color and form and have created several paintings based on what I see using multiple layers of transparent wax.

My medium is encaustic, created from bee’s wax, pigment and damar resin. Encaustic is heated and applied in layers to cradled board. I use personal photographs for content, including bedrock from along the shores of Lake Michigan, and more recently interior views of forests.

The photographs are printed onto rice paper and incorporated into the surface of the wax. Silkscreen adds reductive elements of the bedrock, creating a layered space. Through my work, I seek to make sense of this world, to feel myself as fully present and to ground myself in the experience of being alive. The physical nature of the world captivates me. I feel the presence of a past that is revealed through structures, landforms, rock, water, and earth.

Forest imagery acknowledges the woods as an endangered place of refuge. It refers to the cycles of death and rebirth that occur constantly in forests. Forest imagery is included in both the ink jet prints and silkscreen elements with encaustic. I love being able to do free form combinations of silkscreen elements both under and over the surface of the painting, exploring the play between abstraction and representation.

Abstraction can give meaning to thoughts or feelings that cannot be expressed in words. I know that this experience is different for each person looking at the art. For me, as I have worked on this series, I have discovered more personal meaning in my fascination with North Point and the natural world. The water’s edge has become a powerful metaphor for the many journeys taken through life.Looking down at the ancient surface of the bedrock and the water of Lake Michigan, I contemplate both the past and the future.