Shop

This painting reflects the story of my great-grandmother. My great-grandmother and great-grandfather lived in Siberia. They were a wealthy family from the upper class. In 1917, the Russian Revolution took place and the civil war began. The communist Bolsheviks who came to power killed the rich and took away their property. My great-grandmother survived, although she lost all her property. The fate of my great-grandfather is unknown. It was impossible to talk about his disappearance. My great-grandmother's son hid his origins, because he was afraid that the new authorities would subject him to repression. Great-grandmother Anna was left alone, without money, without a husband and son and without understanding why she was punished like that. In the painting, great-grandmother Anna sits in her favorite lace blouse, with an album of family photos and forget-me-not flowers in her hands as a symbol of a request for us to remember her. On the small table on which her hand rests is a photograph of the heir to the Russian throne, Tsarevich Alexei. The photograph is a symbol of the great-grandmother's commitment to the old pre-revolutionary order. The fate of the Tsarevich is also tragic. He will be shot with the entire royal family by the Bolsheviks in 1918. The background on which the grandmother is depicted is a symbolic image of her native Siberian city as it was before Revolution, on the eve of Apocalypse.

Trillium grandiflorum are magical: three bracts that miraculously photosynthesize with three giant, white and commanding petals. Known as birthroot, trilliums midwifed three girls, that branched into another family of three. With years of patience, trilliums will gain enough energy to bloom, fleetingly, yearly; teaching my family persistence with moments of beauty and impermanence.

If you know you know

I am an artist-photographer-educator and photojournalism is paramount to my photographic work. On the street offers glimpses of life frozen in time. I favor urban environments as places that afford a hubbub of activity with people moving in their own spaces and unaware of others around them. This particular image is from a trip to Rome and made after breakfast with my son at Caffé de la Paix (Café of Peace) on Via di Tor Millina. While the chef in the café prepped and served us food, we had a great conversation with him and tips on places to visit and food to experience. We left the café and I turned around and saw this same gentleman step out for a smoke break (very common in Europe!) and I knew this was the image I wanted to capture. He framed the street activity.

The Zen circle, Enso, and the color red are recurring themes in my abstract art making. In Zen circles the Enso is a circle drawn or painted in one breath. It may represent infinity, enlightenment or MU, which in Zen means emptiness. Open or closed, if made with a concentrated mind, the resulting Enso is perfectly imperfect – wabi-sabi – and cannot be repeated. During Covid I made a lot on Ensos in many different mediums. Each Enso representing a moment in time. After Covid I began my printmaking journey and of course had to include the Enso in some of my prints. Also included in this one is a torn page from one of the books I wrote. I see this piece as uniting my many worlds and connecting with the whole universe – interconnected and breathing as One.

I work with the female form, delivering her to rooms and spaces where she can "take up space" and be seen. "Laced Vest" is a contemplation on chakras--energy wheels--that spin in our bodies and contribute to our well-being.

I’m a textile artist who is inspired by the world around me, especially by nature. I look at my surroundings with inquisitive eyes and mind, with curiosity, knowing there are hidden treasures to be found and turned into art. My artistic approach is mostly intuitive with a constant awareness of color combination and contrast. The use of strong colors is a direct influence of my Brazilian heritage. Using fabric as the medium to create my art pieces was a natural choice since I have been working with it from my teenage years. My creative process can be described in two phases. The first one is the combination of inspiration and visualization of an art piece. The second phase is transforming what I visualized into actual artwork. It requires selecting fabrics as close as possible to my vision, adjusting, and sometimes, starting all over again.

Imagine the magnitude of quickly reviving the old mills across America to retool for speedy manufacturing. It seems such a monumental task, that took a generation to build the first time. Growing up in New England I was surrounded by textile mills, some still working, some newly converted to restaurants and shops. Here's my take on attempting the modern retooling of those textile mills. Created with acrylics, fabrics, fibers, and metal bobbins, the weaving of the fibers represents a mix of old and new fibers, with gold wire to hint at the future.