Secret Circus: Scroll that way --->
I started Secret Circus with two paintings called, Moon and Stars, which I've placed last on this list. (I don't want you to see them yet.)
The central idea that Secret Circus is rooted in is the idea of separation.
While I created Secret Circus I simultaneously pieced together notes and formed my manuscript, The Unmet Man, as my graduate thesis.
In order to write the story, I had to let go of an ideal I had of what love was, and I knew that both the act of writing and creation of the visual work would lead to a change. I was asking the work to help me grow up, and I was asking the visual process to help me write something very specific.
I had two years.
I began the earliest process of The Unmet Man late in 2002, and in 2008 I was finally ready to write the story.
In 2002, I made a painting titled, Catharsis. (Shown here, the fourth one to the right.) At the time it felt as though I had gone through a cathartic experience, but now, years later, I realize that my experience leading to the creation of the first "catharsis" painting was my entry into it. It was just the beginning.
Because of this discovery I needed to revisit the piece, so I did. Now my angels are ghost-like. Before they were vibrant and solid. They have their place in my life now, I don't need to force their presence anymore.
The cartoon-like heads I originally percieved as angels, and have used the image as a trademark since 2003. I make stickers out of them and they've graced my website for years now.
To acknowledge the symbol's importance, and to reflect my interest in glimmer and light, I used crystals to make the shape of one of my "Catharsis Heads," as I have named them on my digital files.
I began Unicorn with two large pieces of wood, knowing that the painting would consist of the two parts, and that one image would be painted on both panels. My ideal hanging of the work would leave a two-inch gap between the two, as is shown in the first image photographed on my studio floor, in natural light. (to the left.)
The act of painting Unicorn was the most difficult in this series.
While I started out feeling as though the work would lead me to a new perception of human connectivity, I found myself staring at the early layers of the painted panels and realizing that I had lost a larger faith.
It led me to face the fact that I could no longer rely upon a system of belief I had developed when I started with The Unmet Man.
I chose the name, Unicorn, after realizing that the work had placed me in a liminal space, and of course unicorns are liminal creatures. Because the painting also looks like an appropriate landscape for a unicorn, I thought it would be a funny title.
By the time I got to the task of creating, Twins (the two smaller paintings on the right), I was in need of leaving the control I asked of myself with Moon and Stars and Unicorn, and to a certain extent, with the two sculptures.
My writing was stuck. I needed to give in to my desires a little, in order to shake it loose.
I started with a more human idea for these. One canvas was male, the other female. At first I made them appear different, and although they look like two different paintings, they both seem to now share a similar life-force through shape and color.
The thread was added to reference "connection" figuratively and literally, and also to reference craft projects that were popular in the 1970s, which is the decade I was born into.
These two pieces came very naturally from me. It felt good to paint them.
I even added the pale teal color as an entryway, which felt generous.
As I made progress writing The Unmet Man, I found I was having trouble with the idea of fantasy. I was writing a work of fiction, not a science-fiction novel, however I needed to feel secure about an idea I had that the protagonist was moving in and out of realities. She develops her own belief system, and sees other characters beyond those she interacts with within the story.
This of course mirrored my own struggle.
It didn't work to write this into the manuscript, so I decided it best to literally draw them out, for myself, so that I felt they existed. That's why I call these, the Characters. After I made them I no longer saw them as physical manifestations of characters I was writing about, however I do see them fitting within the liminal narrative I had formed within the Secret Circus.
The title, Secret Circus, came from a conversation I had with a friend and fellow graduate student.
I was telling her about how as a child I believed that the brightly colored striped tents exterminators put around houses in neighborhoods were circuses, and when I asked my parents if we could go, and they explained to me what they were, I didn't believe them. I chose to believe they were secret circuses that I wasn't allowed to see, and I hoped one day I would figure out how to.
I also created a stuffed-cluster version of them, commenting on how I use their being percieved as "cute" to my advantage.
I removed their mouths, like Hello Kitty, the forever silent epitome of pop-culture-feminine and adorable.
Moon and Stars 2008 carved wood box-panel 20x20x1inch- casein, metallic powder, two-part epoxy resin
As I mentioned, my first step was to create two paintings that shared elements and color (Moon and Stars). The next was to begin Unicorn, which split one painting into two.
Another task I set for myself was to build three-dimensional forms to represent "the two."
These sculptures feel frozen to me. My feelings for "the two" began to change as I worked on them. I started to understand them as being pawn-like. Necessary, important, but pawn-like.
Some kind of will is lost in this form. It may be the only kind of will I know, and so its absence makes me uncomfortable.
This discomfort was important.
To try and understand how I felt, I thought about what it would be like to be a tree. I had to let go of trying to see myself as a human turned into a tree. It's frightening to think of it that way. Instead I had to think about simply being a tree.
Unicorn consists of layers of color and pencil-drawn circles and it is drip-coated with a two-part epoxy resin. Within the resin is a powdered metallic pigment, which adds to the reflective nature of the piece. As you can see from the images here, it changes depending upon light and angle.
The organic nature of the way the resin sits on the surface seems perfect to me. Perfect form. The lines I draw rarely ever reach that perfection. I layer the two as a way to speak to that and once again it comments on the dichotomy between what I desire and the way things are.
The lace around the edges make me think of petits fours; pretty little girly cakes, which speaks to a child-like desire; some kind of fake-feminine rule my neurology had been formed around.
Finally we are back where I started, with Moon and Stars.
These paintings began with the complete opposite color scheme. Underneath the top layer each one hides the color that the other one is.
One connects moons, the other connects stars.
They are also coated in my "plastic plasma," that I hope lends the viewer to connecting the work with something biological as well as celestial. I think essentially, that's what I want.