at the well

The At the Well series, began as an inquiry carried out through master studies, but quickly merged with interest in placing complex math forms in a believable world. In this series, I re-examine Bouguereau’s La Cruche Cassée , a 19th century French portrait of a girl leaning against a well with a broken water pitcher at her feet. I have asked: What is it about this painting that has resonated with a large number of people? What role does the broken pitcher play in its appeal? How have vessels changed as metaphors for femininity throughout art history? Can the symbol be substituted with other openended or abstract mathematically derived forms?

Highlighting the vessel-like qualities of the Klein bottle, I have often replaced the broken pitcher with this new, complicated form. Other paintings in the series reconfigure the composition to create changed narratives, layer and reflect the composition on itself, replace the original girl with a series of different figures, and eventually replace the figure altogether with mathematical forms. The process of rendering these forms in two dimensions led to discoveries and questions about the fine line between the representational and the abstract. In the language of math, a Klein bottle is a “nonorientable surface with no boundary.” I like to think this could define a painting as well.

Oil on drypoint on panel, 2019 36 x 24 inches

Cassatt And Caregiving

After a series of projects—both figurative and abstract—in which I’ve hoped to better understand the essence of an identity, a shared origin, or a culturally understood symbol by collecting images that are all linked to that concept, I’ve recently turned my attention towards the links themselves. They can be identity statements, equations, metaphors, or relationships, but it is these connections that support and create the meaning I am often looking for.

For this reason, I decided to focus on compositions with more than one figure. Revisiting the Plus A Century Portfolio , one of my first print projects inspired by Mary Cassatt’s color prints from the end of the 19th century, I have looked closely at Cassatt’s use of color, line, and pattern to create a similar esthetic with contemporary subjects. These prints, the plates for which I etched during a residency at Scuola Grafica in the spring of 2022, all focus on the relationship between a caregiver and a small child.

The

Bath

Woodcut, drypoint, aquatint, watercolor, 2022

13 x 10 1/2 inches

Opposite page: The Blue Room

Woodcut, drypoint, aquatint, watercolor, 2022

13 x 10 1/2 inches

Hand and Hand

Woodcut, drypoint, aquatint, watercolor, 2022

13 x 10 1/2 inches

Geppetto

Woodcut, drypoint, aquatint, watercolor, 2022

13 x 9 inches

The Garden Party

Woodcut, drypoint, aquatint, watercolor,2022

13 x 10 1/2 inches

The Family Room

Woodcut, drypoint, aquatint, watercolor, 2022

13 x 10 1/2 inches