My sculptures are about the power of gesture and shape to communicate. Every gesture conveys a meaning and every shape has a personality. Images reach us more deeply than words and for this reason sculpture transcends language barriers. I play with abstract shapes exploring how much visual information is needed to let people identify and name something and yet try to keep it fluid. I want the imagery to be ambiguous enough to allow multiple levels of meaning. I am inspired by animals, seed pods, shells, birds, human gestures and other natural phenomena. I admire the work of Arp. Miro, Calder, Martin Puryear, Barry Flanagan, James Surls, Niki de Saint Phalle and many others. I look for the symbolic message in the essence of my images and in the relationship of one image to another. I understand that the viewer’s perception of my work is always colored by his own experiences. I feel that each artwork is not complete until it has prompted a response from someone looking at it.
BIOGRAPHY
I am having a lot of fun here in Brandon, Florida. My violins whirl and dance, my pianos throw their keys in the air and my shells curl up and roll away. There comes a time in each person’s life when she feels the need to blossom. This is my time. I am celebrating life by making sculptures, paintings, music, installations and anything else I can get my hands on. My mind is populated with a menagerie of waddling, creeping, rolling, prancing, meandering or dancing ideas complete with attitudes and life histories. I have spent the first half of my life designing furniture and carving statues for churches with my Swedish born husband, Bjorn. This is a sweet way to earn a living but now, the life force is bubbling up from beneath the surface of my imagination and I need to give form to other thoughts and ideas. I am also making sound scapes, you could almost call it music, that gives voice to my sculptures. In that way I can make installations where they frolic together in a supportive sound environment. Thoughts and feelings take on shapes and colors that speak to us in a subtle unconscious way. Things we cannot readily identify are just as real as those we can but they speak to us in ways that bypass the word making mind. I believe that what I am trying to “say” in my work will become clearer to people and more understood if I can just keep doing it long enough.
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Miaoli Wood Sculpture Museum, Sanyi, Taiwan ( 5 sculptures in the permanent collection)
TungHai University, TaiChung, Taiwan (“Flight of Mother Theresa”)
Tampa General Hospital (“Collected Memory”)
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN, ("Tango Solo")
The Ameriway Bank, Houston, TX, ("The Enfoldment")
The Mobile Oil Corporation, Stockholm, Sweden, ("Three Sisters")
The Northwood Institute. Collection, West Palm Beach, FL (“Wind in the Trees”)
HageGården Music Center, Edane, Sweden, ("Nyutsprungen")
City of Tampa, FL (“Underwater Ballet” and “Sunlight on the Lake”)
Tampa Water Dept., Tampa, FL “The Waterbearers” (bronze fountain )
PUBLIC ART COMMISSIONS
City of St. Petersburg, FL, "The Enchanted Mangrove Forest", (Central Avenue) 1995
Hillsborough County, FL (Pavilion Floor and History Walk , Courthouse Square, downtown Tampa)
Hillsborough County, FL (“Litigation” sculpture, County Courthouse)
INSTALLATIONS
"The Mandala of the Holy Ones" installation - exhibited at the New Visions Conference -Houston, TX;
Texas A&M University College Station, TX; a Unitarian church and a library in Dallas, TX.
Acquired by World Peace Center, Lincoln, NE, 1987
"Ten Archetypes" installation - exhibited at The Sixth Texas Sculpture Symposium, San Antonio, TX;
Rachel W. Davis Gallery; The Jung Center and an Episcopal Church in Houston.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2007 Exchange Exhibition, Miaoli Wood Sculpture Museum, Sanyi, TAIWAN
( 11 of my sculptures exhibited)
51st FL Craftsman Exhibit, Broward Community College, Davie, FL , 2005
Florida Biennial, Deland Museum of Art, Deland, FL. , 2002
Two Person Show, Brad Cooper Gallery, Tampa, FL, 2002“
49th FL Craftsmen Exhibit, Center for the Arts, Vero Beach, FL, Merit Award
Solo Exhibition at Donn Roll Gallery in Sarasota, FL, 1996
Two Person Show, B.I.G. Arts Center, Sanibel Island, FL , 1994 & 1992
Solo Exhibition, Modern Art Gallery, Sarasota, FL , 1994
1993 Annual Juried Exhibition, Orlando Museum of Art,
Juror: Terrie Sultan, Curator of Contemporary Art, Corcoran Gallery, Wash. D.C.
“Mixed Media” (a four person show) Northwood Institute, West Palm Beach, FL ,1991
Solo Exhibition, Old Government House, Augusta, GA , 1990
"7 NYA", Galleri Kretsen, Södertälje, Sweden , 1989
Solo Exhibit, Galleri Östermalm, Stockholm, Sweden
Spectrum South: The Malone & Hyde Collection "The Tenn. State Museum, Nashville, TN
"Three Artists, Three Playwrights, Three Doors" Rachel W. Davis Gallery, Houston, TX
"Art South" A Biennial Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture. Memphis, TN ,
Juror: John Canaday Best of Show in Sculpture. catalog
Solo Exhibition, University of St. Thomas, Houston, TX
Solo Exhibition, Temple Junior College, Temple, TX
“Wood in Art", The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX catalog
"Doors - Houston Artists" Alley Theatre, Houston, TX catalog
Solo Exhibition, College of the Mainland, Texas City, TX
EDUCATION
Master of Fine Arts Degree in Sculpture, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, 1974, Academic Fellowship
Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Sculpture ,The Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH, 1971 , Awarded “Helen Green Perry Traveling Scholarship” and traveled through Europe and West Africa (across the Sahara) looking at art and people.
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine. Summer, 1969 , Full scholarship.
