Art and Poetry

Palladium print of Irish Moss found in the intertidal zone in the Gulf of Maine. Irish moss shields many sea creatures which inhabit this mossy turf.

When in the Gulf of Maine the sea ebbs, the seaweed named Irish moss is revealed. Irish moss cushions living things in layers. Rachel Carson describes this as “life exists on other life, or within it, or under it, or above it” in her book “The Edge of the Sea”.

At Arts Gowanus Open Studios, October 19 and 20, noon to 6 PM, 69 Second Ave., Brooklyn, I will display this camera-less, palladium print in collaboration with this poem by poet Diane Mehta.

Vent a dome, invent a habitat

for tubeworm, sea-stout, eelpout

waltzing, 700 degrees in love.

They must know their origin

is hydrothermal swirling,

that fate is motion-of-lfe

agitating to occupy the world.

Art on Exhibit

Palladium print of abstract photographic collage of a woman's legs supporting a newborn baby surrounded by blossoming oak leaves in palladium painted with red and green pearlescent watercolor is about our interdependence with trees. We breathe oxygen which trees release during photosynthesis and release carbon dioxide which the trees take in for their own nourishment.

This November 2024 I have two special, to me, artworks on exhibit in a juried exhibition called “Spectrum of Exposure” at BWAC, Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition in Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY.

These two works reflect my desires that women, children and nature will flourish despite the violence and destruction we are witnessing. I will share my vision for this particular artwork, “Breathe”, which I am featuring in this post.

I have developed this work with layers of photographs of a woman and her baby, branches of an oak tree and the blossoms of this oak tree. The woman with her birthing baby seem to support the branching oak. The blossoms of the oak tree drape around them. I have printed all the negatives using palladium, which I brush onto handmade Japanese gampi paper. Then I painted green and red pearlescent watercolor. The green is for photosynthesis that trees use to convert carbon dioxide into sugars and release oxygen, which we breathe. The red is our blood, the carrier of oxygen in our bodies.

This work of life and breath is my offering to women, children, plants and animals worldwide.