A large part of my Studio Practice in the 1970s consisted of "Works on Paper", using mostly wet pigment and mixed-media. Conceptually I was interested in the rigor and language of abstraction: plasticity of the page (composition) mark-making and gesture, surface and colour along with the exploration of different materials, surface and drawing supports.
Although I used a lot of paint, (I have included one gallery of oil and acrylic paintings) much of the work presented in this section was about the immediacy of drawing and the formal language of abstraction.
The influences of being in New York City during the hieght of formal Abstraction (mid 1960s) and my early awakening as an artist led me in this direction ~ and I loved music ~ Jazz, John Cage...
Eventually finding the structure of diagonal stripes and the "Grid" along with the fluid viscosity of paint were fertile areas to explore.
Colour ~ Composition ~ Gesture...Wind ~ Rain ~ Sun...Rythm ~ Melody ~ Tone Colour...
Lines eventually became cut edges and the pursuit of the Grid led to the simple yet fraught eloquence of paper woven into paper.
The weaving became a for shadow of my feminist voice... Somehow the activity itself enacting feminist concerns.
This simplicity didn't last long... the elegant reductionism didn't jive with my natural sense of complexity. The grid eventually led to an interest in pattern - it's cultural implications - and an acknowledgement of fumbled edges, messiness and mistakes... It also got me off the page and into three dimensions.
And through it all ran music - the ultimate in abstraction - which I played out on my Flute.