Sensations of Soaring

Scroll to view exhibition images followed by process.

Sensations of Soaring, Atlantic Works Gallery, Boston
April 3-30, 2021
Gallery View

A colorful assemblages of breastplates, printing templates, miniatures and a mobile invites guests into the gallery, which is located on Boston Harbor's waterfront.  

Sold works are marked 🔴 

The sculptures and monotypes I created for this exhibition share two stories of human awareness. First, physical awareness, such as what we all feel via our skin when someone touches us gently. Second, is the bliss that we feel when our feet are grounded like roots in nature and we connect to the realm above.

Blue Breastplate
2021
collapsed cartapesta sculpture, hardening agents, inks, resins, paint
14 x 18.5 x 2 inches

The Blue, Red, Silver and Gold breastplates are mythological skins brought forward in time to protect its wearer.

Silver Breastplate
2021
collapsed cartapesta sculpture, hardening agents, inks, resins, paint
14 x 18.5 x 1 inches

The contemporary artifact recognizes the endeavors and strength of young women.

Red Breastplate
2021
collapsed cartapesta sculpture, hardening agents, inks, resins, paint
14 x 18.5 x 1 inches

Who wears a 'visible' breastplate?

Wonder Woman, of course. Joan of Arc. Nike and Athena. Brienne of Tarth and Cersei from Game of Thrones.

Those who wear invisible breastplates are many.

Yogini Pods
2014-2017
plaster
20 x 15 x 8 inches

The alcove installation is a homage to emptiness--because when we are empty we are are actually full, filled with awareness and can fly.


Just about every piece of art in this exhibit originated inside these plaster pods.

Monotype #1 🔴
2017
Akua inks on archival paper
24 x 30 inches

I made these monotypes while working as a visiting artist at Mass MoCA. The figurative work invites the viewer to see the body as if it were nestled inside a garment or under a sheet, changeable and tucked inside something other than itself.

Monotype #2 🔴
2017
Akua inks on archival paper
24 x 30 inches

The life-sized work feels as if you might have pressed your own self into colors.

Monotype #3 🔴
2017
Akua inks on archival paper
24 x 30 inches

I see a face within the monotype. I see sleep. Time. Heavy blankets. Love. Sex. Dreaming. Drifting. Flying.

One-piece series
2021
Lecce paper, plaster, gouache
4 x 2 inches (approx)

My mother, a Beauty Queen with dark curly hair and green eyes, resembled Elizabeth Taylor. She was 20 when I was born, and I was 3 or 4 when we were in that swimming pool stall together. I reached up to touch her still cool and wet belly as she pulled off her white bathing suit. How wonderful, I thought, to be a grown up and to be so beautiful.


These bathing suits are for our mothers.

Annette Kellerman's One-Piece 🔴
2021
Lecce paper, plaster, gouache
4 x 2 inches (approx)

Kellerman was not only one of the first celebrity swimmers, but also one of the first women to wear a one-piece bathing costume (c. 1900), instead of the then-accepted pantaloons.

Rudi Gernreich Monokini 🔴
2021
Lecce paper, plaster, gouache
4 x 23 inches (approx)

The 1964 photos of the woman in a monokini, in Life Magazine created quite a shock. The timing was on target for Gernreich, the designer, who wanted to reduce the stigma of the naked body in order to “cure our society of its sex hang up.”

Britt Ekland's Leopard Print 🔴
2021
Lecce paper, plaster, gouache
4 x 23 inches (approx)

A precious-sized devotion to carnal pleasure.

Skin of Warriors: Men I Have Loved
2021
Copper tubing, paper tablets cast on top of Otranto cannonballs, plaster gouache
5 x 4 feet

Each tablet in this standing mobile was made by pressing layered paper saturated with hardening agents against huge cannonballs, weapons that were fired from ships during the 1480 Ottoman invasion of Otranto, Italy.


More intimately, I have pressed my skin against the chests of uncles and father, grandfathers, lovers, and childhood friends. They held me against their bare chests in summer heat; so close the smell of their sweat stuck to my body. Those beautiful experiences are stored in memory as safe spots.


That's why I made this mobile. I look at it every day. It's hanging in my studio.


All of the men I honor in this mobile fought in wars-- World War I, n World War II, Korea, Viet Nam, Desert Storm, Iraq. The men shared tenderness as they hugged me so that we could reinforce trust in humanity, and they could transcend the horrors of what they had seen.  

Process images

How to make printing template from paper sculpture.

First, make the sculpture.

Using paper and organic glues, I work inside a plaster pod. You can see a trio of these pods, on the exhibition page.

Flatten the sculpture

Run the 3D paper sculptures in a printing press, on the bed and under the drum three or four times to get it really flat. For less flat design purposes, I use my car to roll over a sculpture nestled between sheets of plywood. I have also pounced upon the sculptures in my studio using my feet.

After flattening and before inking I seal the paper template so as to provide longevity.

Ink the paper template

I use Akua soy-based inks and 18-inch rubber brayers to apply multiple colors to the template before running it through the press onto white paper.

Here you see an already inked-and-printed template.


On Sensations of Soaring Exhibition page you can see several of the beautiful prints I have made using this process.

Now for Some Fun: Britt Ekland's Post-Fellini Leopard Print Bathing Suit
2020
Mixed (paper, plaster, hardening agents, gouache)
4 x 2 inches

One swim suit from my ongoing, collectable miniature bathing suit series.