These works I made in the last year of my MFA program at the Maine College of Art. Part of the time I was at the Oak Street Studios, until gentrification set in our neighborhood, after that I was working out of my apartment studio again. These pieces are of my walks to the studio, to the school, and of those places plus my home, which was an apartment nearby. I walked everywhere in Portland and did not drive, which was a new experience also coming from the West and a car culture. I of course enjoyed the pace, the ability to take in sensory information, and to notice small things along the way.
The drawings especially were fresh and raw in that I went to them immediately after walking to the studio, and was able to transcribe the information I learned along the way visually. I enjoyed the newness, and also recording that in the art itself. I was very careful in my walking, taking a variety of routes, and trying each one several times. Each route offers its own personality, and I convey those in the drawings. Again, as in other works, I see this as an artery between the two sites, from home to studio, or home to school, or school to studio or vice versa. The movement, the traveled pathway, all offer their motion, and changing of form. Arteries are the streets of the body, moving things and fuel, just as the sidewalks allow the same.
In one series of work, the Cell Mitosis Libraries, I compare my personal book collection to the cells of our bodies as they duplicate. Reading and learning actually physically change our brains, allowing us to gain new connections and grow our brain cells. The books on a shelf also visually resemble cells in mitosis, duplicating and growing. Also this is a sort of portraiture of my library, and something I hold dear, and that I enjoy to a great extent.
