Large Projects
This mural was my transition from small ‘markers on paper’ art to working large! Walking around my house one day I realized this blank wall was a perfect canvas. This art style originated in the Madhubani region of India as wall art to celebrate important life events, gods, or festivals.
Owl with Luna Moth at Schoolhouse
Painted for the Community Center. now The Plymouth Schoolhouse. this Great Horned Owl is accompanied by glow-in-the-dark fireflies. Painted on exterior plywood, 2’ x 5’.
Freedom Eagle
I have a small connection to the Wampanoag people through my grandfather Lewis Tripp. I have been learning Wampanoag history, culture and patterns. For this eagle I combined Joan Tavares Avant’s beautiful beaded headband and geometric dress worn by Anna Handy Fontes circa 1900. I painted it for a ski/snowshoe trail art show sponsored by the Highland Center for the Arts up in Greensboro, VT. I love how they situated it in the woods in front of the setting sun.
It now hangs in front of our chicken coop to protect our free range chickens from predators.
Owl Family Portrait
Drawn for a friend who wanted a family portrait - as owls - using the same color pallete as the owl at the schoolhouse pictured above. The hardest part was conceptualizing it, but once started it drew itself.
Our garage looked bare so I painted a chicken in the Talavera style. Artisans from Talavera, Spain introduced their style of creating ceramics to Mexican counterparts. Mexican artisan/artists have used it in turn as a springboard to create a style unique to their culture. Folk art is a discussion, like World Music. People share, tranform, adapt, and change mediums as artists interact across our many cultures.
Talavera Chicken
New Beginnings Sheep
This started way differently than what you see here. Dear friends lost their sheep barn to a fire. Their community responded by providing barn space for the surviving sheep, friends started cutting and milling trees for constructing a new one, and local Amish were going to pitch in for a barn raising. i decided to create some barn art. Their sheep are Corriedale, popular in New Zealand, so I looked into Maori stories and art to see what they had to say. What could be more perfect visually and philosophically than the wool-like spiral of the “koru”? Except maybe Maori sun/moon symbolism!
The Maori Perspective: koru is a spiral shape based on the unfurling silver fern frond of the ponga plant. It holds deep significance and meaning in Māori culture and depicts new beginnings, life, growth, strength, and hope. The sun illustrates the person who "gets knocked down" but perseveres. Another version is “Ka to he ra, ka rere he ra” - “As one light sets another light rises” referring to the sun and moon. Both bring light so when one sets the other rises.
Maori art is strong and filled with bold colors and flowing shapes rich with sybolism. But nothing I sketched from their inspiration worked. So while Maori wisdom was my inspiration, these whimsical, pastel sheep emerged to carry the message! Another level; I painted this in the Spring when dandelions and violets abound. Nature provides helpful plants for our transition from Winter contraction to Spring growth. You can pick new dandelion blossoms and leaves along with violet blossoms, steep in hot water for 10 minutes for a cleansing, earthy tasting tea.