Portfolio > A CONSPIRACY OF BEAUTY

Reverie 1
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 8
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 11
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 13
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 10
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 9
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 7
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 6
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 5
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 3
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 2
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 12
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 19
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 14
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 15
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 16
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 17
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Reverie 18
Mixed media
8 x 8 inches
Flamingo Flower
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Forest Orchid
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Heliconia
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Protea Nebula
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Coleus
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Hibiscus
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Anthurium
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Protea
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Plumeria Cascade
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Ke'e Flora
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Iridescence
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Maui Water Lily
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Bamboo Grove
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Scarlet Palm
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Torch Ginger
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Blue Marble Tree
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Leaf Patterns
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Lava Patterns
Archival pigment print
20
Heart Leaf
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Lava Rebirth
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Spiky Heliconia
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Flaming Ginger
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Tree Orchid
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Holei Arch
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Star Seedpod
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Crescent
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Kona Beach
Archival pigment print
20 x 16 inches
Idiosyncrasies 1-2
Solar etching, embroidery
7 x 10 inches
Idiosyncrasies 3-4
Solar etching, embroidery
7 x 10 inches
Idiosyncrasies 5-6
Solar etching, embroidery
7 x 10 inches
Idiosyncrasies 7-8
Solar etching, embroidery
7 x 10 inches
Idiosyncrasies 9-10
Solar etching, embroidery
7 x 10 inches
Idiosyncrasies 21-22
Solar etching, embroidery
7 x 10 inches
Idiosyncrasies 11-12
Solar etching, embroidery
7 x 10 inches
Idiosyncrasies 13-14
Solar etching, embroidery
7 x 10 inches
Idiosyncrasies 17-18
Solar etching, embroidery
7 x 10 inches
Idiosyncrasies 23-24
Solar etching, embroidery
7 x 10 inches
Idiosyncrasies 31-32
Solar etching, embroidery
7 x 10 inches
Idiosyncrasies 35-36
Solar etching, embroidery
7 x 10 inches

In her 2021 novel Still Life, Sarah Winman describes “a conspiracy of beauty.” We currently are living in such a world of perfidy and darkness that I love the idea of a conspiracy of hope and light, however ephemeral. Perhaps it is this quest which drew me two years in a row to Hawaii. In the spring of 2022, I spent a month exploring Kauai and Maui and at an “informal art residency” in a tiny cottage on the island of Molokai. In 2023 I explored the Big Island with its dramatic lava fields and verdant tropical forests.
I began making images of flowers, what nature writer Barry Lopez once referred to as our partners in the divine. But first I had to overcome my fear of being labeled a “lady flower artist,” dismissed as either trivial or too sensual. Even the brilliant Georgia O’Keefe had to battle this after her time in Hawaii in 1939, sketching and painting what she herself called “the voluptuous plants.”
I was also fascinated by landscapes unlike any I had ever seen - red dirt waterfalls, black sand beaches, folding cliffs, stark lava - the otherworldly natural world. I found myself able to be solely in the present for a while, accepting both the light and the darkness.
Once home, I began experimenting with ways to convey what I had experienced in Hawaii, to find the art forms that would best express my “conspiracy of beauty.” I made luxuriant color and stark black-and-white photographs, and printed long pieces of fabric to sew and bead upon. I made solarplate prints from my photographs, and collaged and embroidered on them. In the fabric pieces, I was searching for tactile materiality and fragility, drawing with thread.
The quest continues, to "wash my spirit clean," as John Muir once wrote.....