Most of my work is about personal and societal attitudes as reflected in our ephemera: found photographs (pre-1950’s), ads, menus, postcards. Because most of the found visual bits and pieces I use were mass produced, the broad acceptance of and interest in the ideology inherent in them is underscored. Before "political correctness," society happily perpetuated stereotypes.
This is true of “humorous” materials produced about women, Jews, people of color, Native Americans, fat people, gay people, Arabs, and other minorities. In little bits and pieces negative views were approved at the cash register, sent worldwide through the mails, and displayed at home. These popular images shaped some of our current attitudes as a society: ideas about beauty, woman’s work, body image, social acceptability, masculinity, sex, measures of success and morality.
I am also interested in our perpetuated cultural myths and lies: war as a given, for example. I am interested in our sports, religious and political leaders’ misadventures with truth and morality. I am interested in moral standards as reflected in our icons and popular imagery.
I wonder if our societal soul is nothing more than an Ebay collectible. Will the coke bottle be the fossil index of modern culture, and the tabloids our dead sea scrolls? Are the bits and pieces of pop culture true milestones in our trip from here to there, or barriers to a meaningful journey?
My painted found photographs in particular are about the loss of meaningful continuity in our personal histories, and in the history of our nation.
The black and white photos-- I think of them as Lost Souls-- were found on ebay and in junk sales across the country (California and Florida are particularly lush sources.) Lost souls buried under Tupperware, 8 track tapes and Kathie Lee Gifford bios.
To give these disposable lives new life, I color them and put them in vibrant settings. I add to, edit, repair, color, and fool with the original black and white images: snapshots, photos, postcards, tin types, carte de viste. The repaired image is then rephotographed, blown up, cut out and pasted on an invented background. The whole is then reworked with acrylics, photo dyes, oils, pencil,pen and, in rare lapses of taste, glitter.
These Lost Soul paintings are collaborations with unknown photographers and subjects who lived long ago in a time and place as impermanent and ethereal as yours and mine. Like all of us, the Lost Souls smiled bravely at the camera-- CLICK-- and were gone.
