INTRODUCTION TO MY WORK
(Text to accompany slide show at Panel Discussion, Lehigh University, April, 2007)

I am going to show you a range of images fairly quickly here in order to give you a sense of the breadth of my work. I am a representational painter. When I select something from the physical world to depict, it is because I perceive it as being in some way more meaningful than its mundane function would suggest. I try to represent my subject so that the viewer might also see it in a fresh way, and so that the subject may in some way “speak for itself”. I sometimes think of the way I paint as being something like my handwriting. It is the way I go about communicating what I have to communicate. But I recognize that my realistic style can be as much an impediment to communication as a benefit – people sometimes see the skillfulness as an end rather than a means. So I have come to employ a range of approaches to urge the viewer to engage with my subject matter. I put together these images to give you sense of how I do this and how the pieces I am showing in the Area Artists show fits into the larger intentions of my work. The subject matter in the group of work I exhibited in the Area Artists show is all fabric. As I said in my accompanying statement, the work is not at all about fabric as being the stuff you sew with. The patterns and repetitions in the fabric are for me evocative of larger orders and rhythms. Even within this group of work I will do things to urge the viewer to think about things beyond surface representation. I have included text in this painting, for example, that comes from music on a CD I was listening to at the time of Islamic sacred music. The music had the same sorts of rhythms and repetition-to-the-point-of-ecstasy that I hoped that my painting had. In this next painting I have collaged in some real fabric that serves as counterpoint to my highly rendered imitation. I also sometimes paint straightforward still lifes. In these, my subject matter may be more traditional or less so. Either way, I include clues to direct the viewer to consider the subject matter as I want it to be considered– this may be juxtaposing two elements ( the onions and the drawing – the frog and the fire) or in others including mixed media elements or text to draw out meaning. In the past year I have begun painting large pieces (30x40) that stuff in all the subject matter I can think of – figure, landscape, and still life. Although they have narrative elements I think of them more poetically. There are multiple elements which take on meaning according to what else in the picture the viewer considers it along side of. For example a toy goat is a goat – especially next to the drawing of the bird. But it becomes a toy goat when the real goat shows up the picture. The eagle is a bird of prey next to the dove on its right and is a benign thing next to the flying thing on its left which I think is a B-1 Bomber. Here is another one. I like how it includes things (the pumpkin), representations of things (the photograph, for example) and representations of representations of things the toy model of a horse reflected in the mirror). Here is one more. For the past decade or more I have also maintained a body of 3-dimensional work that I make with a collaborator. My contribution to the collaboration remains my representational painting and my collaborator always builds. At first I worked with my husband, Kenneth Hochberg, who is also a painter. For the past two years I have been working with Andy Brehm who recently graduated from KU’s furniture making area. With both collaborators, I make work that is interactive – the viewer must always touch the work in order to fully view it. I am attracted to this approach because of my quest to more actively engage the viewer. Most of the work I made with my husband was in a box format. What was inside the box was in some way a counterpoint to what the viewer first sees on the outside. The boxes try to address a similar issue as the paintings – outside and inside of the boxes are analogous to outward appearance and below-the-surface meaning in my painting. In the work I have made with Andy Brehm, the viewer actions are much more varied. I have included two pieces here. Some of you may have seen this first one in the Some Serious Business show last September. It consists of 9 boxes, each with a pull string. The viewer pulls a string which lifts a flap revealing a small painting. There is no narrative to the paintings. The title of the piece is Walking and Thinking/ Thinking and Walking – we tried to simulate the sort of thought process one has when you are walking somewhere and your mind wanders off – each of the paintings is analogous to an individual thought. Sometimes the thoughts come and go – one leads to the next. And sometimes you remember that you were particularly enjoying one and got interrupted so you have to go back and refind it. This other piece I made with Andy is two pieces and each one contains a hand held generator. The viewer squeezes the generator for 15 or 30 seconds. It makes a funny sound. When it is juiced up things light up in the paintings. It is intentionally inane and is a lot of work for a small effect.