I’ve spent a lot of time focused on drawing, so I always return to this medium and its derivatives for comfort. But, I chose to paint many of the works, as this is simultaneously a challenge, and forces a different relationship to the substrate, as I’m forced into a different relationship as time passes with my mom, with myself and with my daughter.

“Hysteria” also marks a significant return to my art practice, which was on hold for the near twenty years I lived in New York. As soon as I returned to the oily, clay soil of South Arkansas, the work exploded out of me and has become a medium of therapy and meditation. In a sense, I picked up where I left off, having been heavily influenced by the surrealists and by expressionism at the turn of the 20th century— I related to seeing art as the layer above life; not just an escape, but an explanation and a truth. And I’ve taken the best of both worlds: the surrealist play with the absurd, humor and the non sequitur; and the expressionist visualization of emotion and the abstract instead of physical representation

My works convey a juxtaposition of happiness and sadness; exuberant joy and despair; pain and comfort in my journey from child to parent; from cared for to caregiver; from away to home. While I could be telling a very sad story, I choose to tell the story as I experience it — as a multidimensional, organic life.