Jo

I am an artist in the prociss of becoming. Due to a major life change that occured dispite my best laid plans, I have had the oppotunity to explore my art. Serindipitously I had just taken a class on a process called touch drawing (check out touchdrawing.com)an intiuitive, meditative method of producing art. The process entails rolling out paint on a board and then covering it with a piece of tissue paper. I then try to quiet my mind. I form an intention -- a thought -- and with my eyes closed, draw on the tissue paper with my fingers and hands. I lift off the tissue paper and look into it for images. It may directly relate to my intention or it may have nothing to do with my intention, but I do find images. I bring out the images with the chosen medium such as chalk pastel. I have always been interested in texture and color. I like playing with layers of movement in line and form. My art is deeply influenced by my French Grandmother and the traveling I did as a child. My father's family were artists and became part of the Parisian art world at the turn of the 20th century. The women in my drawings often reflect how I imagined my Grandmother. I was not particularly close to my Grandmother but the atmosphere of Paris and the art world in the early 1900's intrigues me.