the assignment for this piece was to create a space using a composite of our sketches, taken from real live, and the composition had to have figures in the piece. the sketches were from the uwm union, and i created a deep space with these students walking to and from class in the middle. the positioning of the viewer being at the level of the girl in the corner (with her back to us) suggests that we are either in her thoughts, or are another student in the hallway. the figure on the right is isolated to help create a the "first day" feeling.

the picture was created by scanning in my sketches, manipulating the space on the computer, printing it out, and then using pastels over the top of the printouts

the problem was to create a series with an object of our choice. i chose to use my necklace in this series. the hand on the left was created in pastel, and the variations on the right were created by scanning my hand/necklace/face in, and then modifying those compositions on the computer and printing them out.

this problem was left open. to create three works and we were to use sources that were not a 'fine art'. (like musical notations, military symbols, maps, etc) my three pieces started off as not being a series, however once they were on paper, i couldn't see them not being a series.

the first piece is about God. the piece is paint, pastels, Bible pages, and verses printed out on tracing paper. the fire-like colors represents to me the presence of the Holy Spirit ("tongues of fire", and also referring to God being a "consuming fire") and also reminds me of the idea of being "on fire" for God. this "fire" cannot be contained and spills out onto the other pieces of this series

the second piece was initially just to be about letter forms and the artistic quality of typography. as the piece developed, it became about communication in general. when placed next to the first piece, it takes on the representation of the word of God. the monochromatic feel of the piece is to not take away from the idea of the words communicating it's message. the larger letter forms, the 's' in particular are placed to move your eye from one end to the other, and lead you to the next piece in the series.

the third piece is about music. it was the first piece i created in this series. the music notes are moving and at times not completely depicted to let the viewer play with the forms as shapes and as musical notations. i wanted the piece to be fluid and moving, just like music. the torn piece of music in the lower mid-right section of the piece has a handprint on it, to represent the idea of making music. when placed with the other two pieces, it conveys a message of making music that shares the word of God, or music ministry. it represents to me the power that music can have, and especially when the Holy Spirit is working through it!

these two pieces were solutions to a problem in class about drawing multiple figures in a space. we had to create two drawings with different narratives. we had four to choose from: single scene narrative, muliti-episodic narrative, continuous narrative and disjunctive narrative.

the first piece is a 'single scene narrative' piece, where it is a depiction of only one scene. the title is "singers", for it depicts a choir singing. i was inspired to draw singers while attending the milwaukee symphony orchestra/chorus' rendition of Hendel's Messiah.

the second piece is a 'disjunctive narrative' where the narrative elements are disjointed, overlapping or blurred to such a degree that all efforts to produce a clear and unambiguous reading of the narrative is thwarted. (hehe. that was just copied from the handout, trust me, i never would have been able to come up with a sentence that used the word "thwarted") the original piece was a lot less, well, confusing, (it was a giant eye and part of a nose. if you look carefully you can kinda still see the eye..) but i ended up ripping that piece up, and pasting it down in different places, and then painted over the top. the result is this untitled piece. :-)

this piece is me playing with paint like i love. every time i draw, i tend to try to make the piece very true to life. when i paint it's a different story, and the work is more about the colors, and the beautiful texture of the paint. i try to keep colors very vivant and pure, while still blending with other colors. when i showed this piece to a friend, she was reminded of the song "days of elijah." so read whatever you wish into this piece. :-)