In the drawing “Fish of the Sea”, fish are depicted as free, flowing, fluid in their watery primordial environment – creatures of nature. They do not suffer the oppression of the human world like domesticated animals. They obey the laws of nature – unconfined, old beyond belief. These fish are surrounded by other creatures, dragonflies and butterflies – symbols of transformation – depicted in organic circles in my composition. These creatures of the deep are wild, untamed and uncontrolled, free of restraint. They exist as individuals not as groups. The human world does not affect them but there are dangers in their existence – overfishing is a major environmental problem.
In “Alhambra Fountain I and II” - meant to hang side by side – fish are shaped by the artist's hands, under control, trained to human authority. Here they form groups giving up individual identity. They are no longer the wild creatures of nature. I shaped these creatures; I discipline them into a group and then I draw them. I am oppressing them with my power. These fish are no longer timeless and eternal. In these two drawings I have intruded on the fishes silent, watery world and they are voiceless, without language, defenseless against the machine-like human world.
“Twilight” is another drawing from “My Teeming Womb” series and is one of the last drawings from the series. “Twilight” is the epitome of my deliberations depicting butterflies in an architectural setting – a church-like structure. This revolutionary sequence of transforming images sums up all my musings on nature and transmutation into artifice. When I went to Berkeley I became really empowered by the experience, energized. This image is a summation and the last self-portrait I did in this series.
In these drawings, there is a shift from nature to art as I as an artist has shaped these creatures, put them under my control. They are transformed into artifice from the raw materials of nature and I have mastery over nature, shaping it to my ends.
I work in colored pencil on black paper here in my studio apartment overlooking the UC Berkeley campus in Berkeley California. In these drawings, pattern is paramount, structuring my pieces and helping to convey the meaning of my visual experience. Pattern is essential to me because if frees my unconscious mind and I lose myself in the energy of the universe. The animals that I love are intensely patterned – feathers of birds and scales of snakes. Pattern is built up, layer after layer, pattern on pattern. This gives my drawings a richness and complexity that fits the creations of nature – in a visionary effect. In my work, color also works to convey my message; greens, purples and oranges produce hues of colors, not dull charcoal or drawing pencil sketches. Color increases the intensity of my pattern, enlivening them on the black paper as I draw. This results in a dazzling effect as these creatures take form in my work.
While at UC Berkeley from 2009 to 2010, I dealt with the oppression and criticism from professors there, I created a series of drawings I'm calling “My Teeming Womb”. I utilize feminist theories in these drawings, 12 in number, and these images based on gender study courses are female images – curving womb-like shapes, flowing fish roaming the seas, butterflies of an on-going mutation.
In the past, my images were not self-portraits of me as an artist living with disabilities. . . I did not draw myself sitting in a wheelchair, for example. I also do not draw myself in pain as does Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo. Rather, I draw the benefits of my disability – my keen focus on the natural world. My work is a visual endorphin and I make pain work for me. I take that pain and explore it and transcend it from the base material to the gold of artifice.
When I was growing up, I could not look at myself, my face was ugly and my body crippled and deformed – a reflection of my disabled body. I could not stand the sight of myself reflected in the mirror.
But in the past 6 months, I have been exploring my own body as subject matter. These new creations have reflected a new media for me – acylic inks, super-saturated with intense color, more vivid than my colored-pencil drawings with their subtle variations. In these conceptual pieces there are even more patterns giving an almost baroque quality to my work. My palette is almost monochromatic, using sepia inks to add an antique, classical feel to these drawings.
In my gender studies classes at UC Berkeley, I was fascinated by Foucault's writings on biopower and the way that this absolute power acts on the human body. These are self-portraits of myself but with an added interest in feminist theory which are much different than my drawings of the natural world. For example, one drawing “Biopower in Action” depicts a dark, ominous hand wrecking havoc on flower pots with tulips.
Many years ago, I triumphed over my disability by creating art. Now I feel very differently - my disability plays a positive role in my creative process. I knew I was an artist as a child and never deviated from that path. As a child, I loved animals and kept many pets. I drew incessantly, and my mother told me she knew I was an artist at an early age because I draw pictures in butter on our kitchen table.
