energetic forms

 In 2009 I was in school getting a Masters in Fine Art and I was sure of three things: 1. I was interested in working with movement in space. 2. I loved working on a large scale, and 3. I was an imposter and everyone was going to find out I wasn’t talented enough to be in their art program. Fortunately, that year I was also introduced to the film Pas de Deux by Norman McLaren and a lot of things fell into place for me. I started watching hours of video, studying gestures and imagining how the space surrounding those movements were influenced. The more I would draw gestures and movements, the more I realized the figure, which I thought was the structure necessary to attach movement to, was often just getting in the way.

What I was really interested in was the energy of movement- the influence that extends and ripples through a space through and beyond the figure. It’s the “wooshing” lines behind a child’s drawing of a car to show how fast the car is moving, but without the car. I ended up developing this into a process that became my MFA thesis show, and for the first time I truly felt, unlike an imposter, I was CREATING something. It was a series that really challenged me, but the work became a passion- it’s the exact feeling I still have when I’m working. This series demands a lot, but it’s also the work I get lost in the most.