Become a Patron

Thank you for your patronage! With the support of my patrons and the generosity of the Pollock-Krasner foundation, I was finally able to complete the Abandoned Series!

My fully-funded studio time has given me the confidence to claim who I am as an artist working in more than one art form. While my primary medium has been drawing, my expertise evolved to include monotype and painting.

With the freedom to focus almost solely on developing my art, my work underwent a renaissance. I began researching and studying different techniques and concepts in painting and drawing. I met regularly with a group of peers and also visited my college professor to get critiques on my work and share new ideas. Through this exciting exchange, I became inspired by the work of Milton Avery, Helen Frankenthaler, and readings on the sublime. My focus became how to capture the essence of an emotional or physical space, and I experimented with more expressive ways to portray the landscape and my alter-ego’s (the barn’s) experience within it.

While working concurrently in ballpoint pen, printing inks, acrylics, and oils, I experimented with new ways to manipulate these mediums and created complimentary bodies of work for the Abandoned Series in monotype and painting.

Transitioning my work to gel-plate monotype, the marks became gestural and the images distorted, reflecting the fluctuating nature of emotional memory and shifting the focus of the Abandoned Series from the barn itself to the feelings the images evoke. I completed an 18-piece series of 8×10 inch and 16×20 inch monotypes on this theme.

Stepping beyond the restrictions of plate size, I created a series of paintings of the barn in both black and white and full-palette, ranging in size from 5×7 inches to 4×6 feet. I began experimenting with multiple techniques in acrylics and oils, using black acrylic paint like monotype ink by wiping away the paint to create the illusion of light with transparency. Then looking at Milton Avery, I tried using a full-color palette to capture the essence of light in space in as few strokes as possible. During this phase, I also experimented with painting from memory. Interested in opacity, I next looked to Frederic Church and used full-palette to capture the subject. Through this process, I developed my own painting language and applied it to the Abandoned Series.

To further develop my painting language, I explored light and atmosphere by working en plein-air. I was captivated by the life and energy of the natural world around me, especially during powerful storms. This exercise increased my desire to work in full-palette, and I experimented with using broken-color and loose brush strokes. Finding the changing light on the landscape endlessly inspiring, I discovered the next direction in my work. After completing the abandoned barn series, my work shifted to exploring the emotional space created by the light in landscape, specifically the energy of storms.

This exponential growth could not have happened without the funding provided by my patrons. Thank you for accelerating my career with your support!

What’s Next: The Storm Series

Now that the Abandoned Series is complete, I have set my sights on the stormy skies. I’m looking for philanthropists who are excited about seeing this vision come to life and who would like to become patrons. Help me to adventure out into the wild landscape and bring these storms to life!

Any amount is appreciated, thank you for your support!