Winter Small Works 2026

With this project, I created a hand-held idol form to explore the relationship between physical touch and spiritual connection through material manifestation. Each idol will hold the same conceptual meaning, no matter materials or processes used. The historical idea of idols being vessels that project or contain something intangible but with a more personal significance. I wanted to create an object that might offer an immediacy in comfort by being on their person. If it is believed to hold this comfort in its physical form and activated all the personal would have to do is touch it for reassurance. The form I created to be a maternal-like roundness and gentle form that abstracts figure into just a head and body. A crucial element that I think promotes the pocketed ability of the idol is the nail or screw at the center: the idol is not activated until the owner drives a nail or screw personally into their idol. Making this physical connection and experience the idol is then able to release and fulfill what it embodies.

My kid is a student at UCSB, which is not far from where we live. Early one November morning, before it was even light, I got a slightly panicked text that he needed his spare key and would I be at all willing to drive it out to him. I was still in bed, but I could see the marine layer was starting to break up, and I had been meaning to get out to the lagoon on the campus and photograph it in the morning light, so with a raised eyebrow and a bit of snark, I hauled myself upright and took the key and my camera out to the lagoon. It was still a dreamy sort of half-light when I got there, and the sky was reflecting quietly in the water. This piece is a little dreamlike because I was just barely out of bed in that moment. It feels like it is still carrying something of the night with it. I paint in acrylics, largely because I like the fast drying time, but I have to contend with it by building up many translucent layers to blend and soften the clouds and reflections.

There is a barn that sits in a meadow near my house where I take my dog to stretch her legs, and in the winter I tromp around in snowshoes. I enjoy taking in this view of the barn through each season, from bluebird sky to approaching snowstorm.

I am inspired by nature, dreams, spirit and antique treasure bindings. My work starts in clay and I cast, paint, mosaic and gild each piece, adding my handmade cabochons as the final ornamentation.

Drawing has always been, more or less, part of my life. My great grandmother was an artist, as was my mother, and they influenced (and, in the case of my mother, supported) my affinity for realistic art. I focus mostly on detailed, realistic drawings, including magnified images of woodland landscapes based on photographs I have taken while walking in the woods and on the beach near where I live in Essex County, MA, using both graphite and colored pencil. I find the magnified images of the woodland floor compelling landscapes not only because of the varied shapes, but the myriad of colors. In this case, the orange and dark reddish purples are compelling. This particular image is a portion of a larger image that I intend to draw in the future, perhaps on a larger scale.

Sumiko Inoue is a portrait shaped by absence, displacement, and the quiet resilience demanded by war. During World War II, thousands of Japanese American families were forcibly removed from their homes and interned, their identities reduced to numbers, their lives abruptly suspended. This work does not attempt to document that history literally; instead, it seeks to convey its emotional weight. The figure emerges and recedes simultaneously, layered with erasure, abrasion, and fragile color. Her expression is restrained—neither confrontational nor submissive—reflecting the emotional containment required for survival. I use muted, weathered tones interrupted by sharp passages of color to suggest both vulnerability and endurance. Scratched surfaces, veils of paint, and partially obscured marks echo the experience of being seen yet unheard, present yet displaced. The portrait exists in a state of in-between: between cultures, between belonging and exclusion, between visibility and invisibility. The surface carries its own scars—intentional marks that mirror the psychological toll of confinement and loss of agency. This is not a single individual’s story, but a composite presence shaped by collective memory. Sumiko Inoue honors those whose dignity endured despite injustice. It asks viewers to slow down, to look beyond surface beauty, and to consider how history imprints itself quietly—through posture, restraint, and what remains unspoken. The work stands as both witness and memorial, insisting on remembrance through empathy rather than spectacle.

I often use black and white toner transfers from my photographs to create encaustic paintings. I was struck by the love emanating from this elderly couple, on a warm summer day, on the streets of Manhattan. Two lucky people to have each other, and more precious than a newlywed couple.

I love using airbrush to paint wildlife, including insects, birds, reptiles, anything with fur. I started out doing biological illustration many years ago but discovered the airbrush and its versatility. The frog was a fun challenge.

The light as evening beckons creates a sense of wonder. Who knows what possibility awaits just around the bend!

In this piece, I was thinking about the weight and strength of being female. I focus on the female form as I can feel its connectedness to everything. At one time, we were all both male and female, embedded and nurtured in the female torso.

Built to Last honors the foundations we build for ourselves. Inspired by Ireland’s enduring stacked stone walls, the work reflects how layers of experience, relationships, and place form the base upon which we grow.

This is the house of one of my neighbor's on a cold winter's day at dusk. I was moved by the cold the warmth of the windows and taken with the beautiful near monochrome of the scene. Taps into a universal emotion that this winter scene of a home triggers.

My hand-formed sculptures are nature-themed and this particular one is an abstract form meant to recall the Stargazer Lily. It is finished in high gloss white glaze.

The practice of medallic art allows me to create smaller, more intimate works. It also lends itself well to create a series of medals. “The Clothesline” is a first in a series I am calling "Mundane Medals," to celebrate all the beauty I find daily in the little details of our busy life. I'm one who loves to hang dry my laundry, and during the winter I string my clothesline up in my bedroom, (adds humidity and saves energy!) When I wake up in the early morning, with the first dim glimpses of sunlight, I see this rhythmic hanging of shapes of my shirts with such great shadows and texture. I am reminded of the early black and white photos of tenement apartments with clotheslines strung about and I think of my well being, the clothes I have, and the quiet comfortable room I choice to dry them in. A feeling of peace and comfort comes over me. On the reverse of the medal is a haiku that I wrote in support of the image on the front of the medal. A double sided medal begins as two separate pieces, each modeled carefully in clay or plaster. Then molds are made, lettering is refined, and waxes are poured of each side. After melding the two waxes together, it is shipped to the foundry to be cast in bronze.

There is a tension between the nonchalant act of a womxn skinning an apple, the red crescents of apple skin falling towards a fish, a once living creature, being sliced open seemingly like a sacrifice upon an altar. A womxn's hand appears to hesitate near the fish as though an attempt at saving it was unsuccessful. The black and white figure conflicts with the bright red apple skins falling from her knife. Red represents both the fruit and the life force. The iconographic use of gold implies a spiritual aspect to the piece as do the hands with palm reading diagrams indicating that fate is unyielding.

A sense of adventure and opportunity - a new path for discovery.