GASSED 96H X 60W

I draw a pile of gas masks and stand long limbed Sarah  atop ” in your face.” In response to the masks her face becomes a mantis, her skin turns green, feet and hands sienna. There is always ocean in my work, local settings, and now smoke.Gas masks dehumanize the humans wearing them. Turning humans partially into animals brings them closer to nature. Smoke and fire transform.

ANGRY BIRDS 60W x 96H

I began this image a year and a half after the fire. I walked across the burn area a few days after the fire. Areas were still smoldering. I saw the two cars I had owned for many years, black skeletons parked beside the what was once a friend’s home I knew intimately. A raised bird bath was all that stood in the yard. It was embraced by a skeleton of twigs. It was sad and beautiful. I knew I would do something. It just took time. I thought of the mynah birds and how they squabble in the middle of the street. How many animals perished in the fire? I wanted to feature them in a sort of funeral speech. I added my friend in his green chair after I’d finished drawing the trash and was determining the background. I had taken a picture of him sitting in the midst of his mangled loss.

This piece was awarded Juror’s Choice Award in the Hui Noeau Art Center’s 2024 Annual Juried Show.

PISSER 96H X 60W

This piece followed quickly after Gassed. Another dump. The gas mask appears here on Ganesh portraying Grant Wood’s American Gothic, A partial sign UMP could be dump or jump, pump or Trump. He had not yet been elected. Harris was running. Maybe, not likely, but maybe she would win. I love drawing trash and small creatures. Of course “Pisser” is the dog

REACTING TO THE LAHAINA FIRE

AFTERMATH 60W x 84H

Everytime a hot, dry wind blows hard, a student turns inward, won’t speak, the Stones’ Gimme Shelter”fills my head. “It’s just a shot away, fire sweeping through our streets” I am frightened. I created a low key almost monochromatic mixed media drawing about my fear and lingering tension. After the fire, it took a year and a half for me to begin sketching. I set my drawing in a beach park, not about the beauty and joy these beaches offer, but rather the tension and uncertainty of sleeping rough, of having no proper shelter. I drew a mother and two children standing quietly to represent the quiet bravery and vulnerability they endured. I drew cats and chickens, both nervous creatures, always wary, always reacting to any sound or movement. I drew them searching through a growing number of containers. I drew windblown contorted keawe trees casting crazy shadows across the sand. Wind makes us all nervous.

This piece was selected for the 2025 MACC HAWAII BIENNIAL