CONFISCATED WEAPONS OF MASS CONSTRUCTION

What makes people feel safe and protected? Do security measures at airports? Spiritual support? Something else?

This project explores the concept of how protection has manifested in our culture.

Confiscated Weapoons of Mass Construction is a large-scale installation of Yantra symbols (geometrical diagrams used in meditative practice) which are constructed with thousands of recycled scissors confiscated from airport security procedures.

Transforming ancient symbols into new sculptural forms, created with confiscated potential weapons, offers a playful and provocative visual cue that piques the viewer awareness of modern rituals and rules, while offering a moment of harmony to a busy public space.

Sculptures built with recycled
confiscated scissors from airports,
cement and zip ties.







































ARMOR DE AMOR

A series of miniature dresses made out of found natural objects and other mixed media - agave leaves, thistle heads, seed pods, leaves, wire, gold leafing, juju fruit candy.

The agave maintains a tender sweet center within its beautiful radial structure of barbed and pointed stalks and when approaching the agave plant, one must be aware and respectful of this armor. Similarly, we all need to be loved and touched yet also respected and honored. In my own life, I lacked the ability to protect myself. Not insisting that others treat me with reverence, I allowed my center to be handled indiscriminately. My struggle to strike this delicate balance of armor and amor (love) in my life, as represented by the agave plant, informs this body of work.

Exhibited at Five15 Gallery
Phoenix, Arizona February 2007





































SUCKULENT SERIES

A circular arrangement of dried agave leaves centered around a baby bottle nipple, to playfully dialogue about the nature vs. nurture debate and how people are nourished by nature, and at the same time it is a comment about how most of the natural resource of underground water aquifers are being sucked dry in the high and low deserts of Arizona.

Exhibited at The Chapel, Pangea, and Beyond Words Gallery
Prescott, Arizona 2002 - 2006

Five15 Gallery
Phoenix Arizona 2007












































MESSENGER STICKS

Installation of hundreds of found symmetrical sticks natural and hand gold-leafed, some with wings added.

angel
-ORIGIN- Old English engel
Latin from Greek angelos 'messenger'
(messenger of God, heavenly messenger, divine being)

sacred objects
devotional art
totemism - modern totem objects
bringing connection
uplifting comfort for loneliness
visual splendor, grace
a golden heartache remedy
forms created by nature

(sticks collected over 6 years)
First exhibited at Five15 Gallery
Phoenix, Arizona February 2007







*special male messenger stick collection available









WINGS

Ascendent-see
A large 9 foot pair of wings, made with googly eyes around the edges of the feathers.

When one rises above, one is able to see the whole picture.







































CUT PAPER COLLAGE

























































BODY PRINTS

































AGAVE PAINTING

I love everything about agaves.

They have taught me about boundaries and the need for self-protection.

They make a perfect circle if viewed from above.

They are full of nectar inside that feeds bats, birds and bees and humans.

Native Americans use to roast them underground for three days with hot coals, like a big artichoke heart. I tasted it once at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix, AZ. You can sew with the stringy fibers and use the tip as the needle. They are survivors, and I am too. They grow under the harshest of conditions and still shoot up one glorious center stalk before they die. Sometimes they are called century stalk plants because they typically live a long time but not 100 years - that is just rumor.














MANDALAS

I made the left mandala out of dried beans with my friend Mari Porma.

I drew the right one out of pastels.

The summer of 2008, I was staff at Clairvision Meditation School where I cooked for 54 days straight. I was inspired by the food and so I cut up the fruits and vegetables and made a temporary mandala out of the goods from the kitchen.

Purple cabbage, grapefruit peel, bay leaves, carrots and a few other items.






























INTAGLIO PRINT



























































MUDFIRE

For 18 months, I did stilt acrobatics with a physical theater company called The Carbet Bag Brigade.

Mudfire was the performance where we became the earth's blood and performed at Earth Day April 22, 2002 in Prescott, Arizona.

We also performed at the Tsunami on the Square Festival in July, 2002 in Prescott, Arizona.

















RECYCLED SEATBELT CLOTHING

Seatbelts cut from retired vehicles sewn into wearable items.