CAPSTONE EXHIBITION

Sewn Self-Portrait, 2024
Machine Sewn Thread and Fabric on Canvas

To recreate this studio photo from my childhood, I chose a medium to best communicate the meaning behind the moment. Remembering the hours my mother spent crafting and sewing most of my clothes and knowing these early photo sessions were a personal celebration of her completed work, I looked to combine elements as well as capture my own memory of the bright camera flash. I used PhotoShop to alter the color of the original photo and then sewed the image onto canvas. This once in a lifetime artwork pays homage to my talented Mother and all that she taught me.

Good Boy, 2022
Acrylic on Canvas

As an artist, the task of duplicating and depicting things as they are became dull and void of significant meaning for me over time. To move away from imitatively painting objects of interest by indicating structure, light and mood, I pushed myself to explore emotional connections while making strategic composition choices. In representing the essence of my dog’s sweet, playful, and routine-oriented personality, my intrinsic artistic tendencies such as the use of pattern, dynamic color, and the combination of realistic and abstracted images emerged.

Unfriendship Bracelets, 2023
Acrylic on Canvas

A handmade friendship bracelet is given by one person to another as a sweet symbol of the effort and care the friendship represents. Making and wearing the bracelets was a time-honored tradition for me in the 1980’s. In today’s society, an “unfriending” occurs when a person removes someone from a list of contacts on social media websites. This painting represents the juxtaposition of these ideas together as one and is a visual representation of the loss, or letting go, of important friendships over time. The pattern in the background is inspired by an artwork I created in third grade and continued to doodle in notebooks and beyond throughout high school.

Three Wheeling, 2024
Acrylic on Canvas

The last artwork completed in the series, represents the freedom, energy, and inventiveness I had riding my Murray tricycle. Adorned with a 1970’s Pop Art sticker on the seat, I blazed an adventurous and fast trail. The vivid imagery and colors of my past continue to form and shape my present. While our relationships with inanimate objects are often viewed as materialistic and society-driven consumerism, past and present cultures value object’s historical values, sentimentality, and emotional responses. Through my Capstone research around this topic, I have better defined my own cultural identity and predisposition to creative expression while also challenging the historical ways of presenting objects. 

Knit Magic, 2024
Acrylic on Canvas

I spent hours as a child cranking the handle of this knitting machine. Watching the hooks go around and around catching yarn, I produced yards and yards of yarn tubing that I turned in to many imaginative things. To best capture the nostalgia and important role the loom played in feeding my creativity, I chose an abstracted yet symmetrical viewpoint with emphasis on the enticing downward spiral. I considered painterly ways to contrast the smooth, hard plastic with the soft texture of the yarn. I found the repetitive and mesmerizing nature of the brush strokes on the canvas alluring as the process comforted me in the same ways the action of the loom did as a child.

The Sewing Box, 2023
Acrylic on Canvas

Inspired by the sewing projects I did with my Mother as a child, this painting of her sewing box from the Welcome Wagon, Owatonna, MN as a functional time capsule, evokes much emotion and sentimentality for me. The excitement of hand-crafting, the shiny pink vinyl, the creak of the box opening, the soft touch of the satin, and the crunch of the tomato pin cushion as the straight pins are returned compelled me to give viewers a look inside. This symbolic object is an expression of my identity and connects to my artistic journey. This family treasure embodies the whole of my Capstone theme and played a large role in shaping my most recent works of art.

Infinity 8 Roller Skate, 2022
Acrylic on Canvas

An examination into a “flashback”, or quick glimpse of a memorable past experience, I used a “bird’s eye” viewpoint of myself looking down at my feet and a small black canvas to represent both my limited peripheral vision and the hot pavement. I forced the skates off the picture plane to create tension like the actual friction between the rubber wheels and the asphalt. For added originality, I employed a text-to-image artificial intelligence or A.I program. Adding descriptive words such as “movement” and “dance”, A.I. generated new reference images of the Colt roller skates which inspired me to render the skates in a more innovative and painterly way.

Loud Girl, 2022
Acrylic on Canvas

As an artist, the task of duplicating and depicting things as they are became dull and void of significant meaning for me over time. To move away from imitatively painting objects of interest by indicating structure, light and mood, I pushed myself to explore emotional connections while making strategic composition choices. In representing the essence of my dog’s ear piercing bark and favorite toy, I considered a variety of shapes, lines, and blending of colors to create balance and unity in the artwork. I also explored the use of transparency in an abstracted image to better depict the way her glass shattering shrill resonates

The Time Out Chair, 2022
Acrylic on Canvas, Latch Hook and Yarn

An exercise in embodying texture, this image expresses an early childhood memory of a chair with soft, velvet-like fabric I “drew” on while sitting in “time out”. As fast as the memory of my mother telling me to “stop that” came, the quick hand stroke upwards to “erase” the picture in the fabric followed. This painting was the precursor to continued exploration of memory, flashbacks, and sentimentality. To further expand on my memories of early creative experiences in my artwork, I latch hooked the frame to enhance the theme of the painting but also to share with the viewer the innate and overwhelming desire one has to touch.

Bluebirds, Bike, and the Avon Lady, 2024
Digital Self-Portrait Collage on Paper

This collage of family photos, advertising images, and important objects from my childhood captures the dream-like qualities of memories. To pay homage to my Grandma, whose nickname was Bluebird, I included the hand sewn quilt we made together. She was also a career women, an Avon Lady, a talented crafter, and a dedicated homemaker. This collage represents the generational handing down of family traits and traditions between my Grandmother, my Mother, and myself.

Klondike Bars, 2016
Intaglio Print

The image is the result of an early college survey in printmaking requiring me to demonstrate the concept of Unity with Variety. Like artists of the 1950’s Pop Art movement, where artists depicted the foods they loved, the celebrities they worshipped, and the daily objects they wished to possess, I chose to illustrate a personally meaningful and contemporary product my husband redesigned the brand packaging for in 2008. While it’s said many of the artworks from the Pop Art movement were an attempt by artists to move away from symbolism, emotion, and our connection to inanimate objects, this period of depicting consumer culture was perhaps the most materialistic period in art history.