Resting Fattie

"Each of the birds in this series represents an important moment in my life  that I want to remember—whether it was good or bad. They are life lessons that I’m sharing with you. I use the birds as a canvas or skeleton for stories of my life experiences.

Birds, because they come in all shapes, color and sizes. They are resilient and colorful. Birds with the qualities and color of the feelings I was experiencing.

However, life and its decisive moments occasionally bow to the practical and the pedestrian. For example, I spend hours drawing and that gives me a lot of time to think, and sometimes I get hungry. My favorite cereal is Lucky Charms, so occasionally yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers will find their way onto the paper. Each piece is a visual diary, a story of my life and what happens around me.
 
The works are one-of-a-kind pastel drawings, and my intent is to push the medium of pastel and pencil to the point that it takes on an expressive, painterly quality. With paint, you can be explosive; the medium is wet and can be textured.

But drawing with pastels is a controlled, dry medium. For this series, I choose bold colors and did all of the creating, thinking, and drawing on the paper. I’m working toward creating dry paintings.

I’m really a storyteller. But I draw my stories rather than speak or write them".