Artist Statement
“A great while ago the world begun,
With Hey, ho, wind, and rain,
But that’s all one, our play is done,
And we’ll strive to please you every day.”
In every culture, across time, there have been comedic and symbolic figures serving up the history transpiring right in front of us in ways that reveal our pretenses, foibles, and double standards.
The artwork I create, most often using the jester and the fox, explores historical, political, familial, and communal realities with the timeless symbols and metaphors of non-threatening comedic commentary.
In William Shakerspeare’s Twelfth Night Act 3, the fool Feste stands alone on stage to finish the comedy with this song that defies the notion of comic relief but shows us that life is filled with drama and tumult, wind and rain, which is repeated refrain after refrain. Taking us through a lifetime to the conclusion that the play is done. Almost an “Oh, well does a single life matter?”
The arts are filled with characters that help us find meaning in both the mundane and the kerfuffle of living. Onstage and in film we meet jesters, fools, clowns, comedians, the Little Tramps, and the Diamond Lil’s, but we also see them in the visual arts.
Storytelling is tied to my Irish heritage and has been a throughline for me throughout my journeys and education. It is an innate part of my personality and my art. Exploring iconography and metaphor through the use of the figure has transformed my verbal and written storytelling into a visual one that creates meaning and mystery for exploration. Through this exploration my work has led repeatedly to the character of the fools like Feste and the foxes like the tricky fox, Reynard from the medieval allegory of wit over brute strength. These characters permit me to explore taboo subjects like politics, sex, the myths of beauty, and gender double standards.
While I also create 2 dimensional figurative works in paint, clay, in all of its forgiving and willing partnership, has become my medium of choice for sculpture. Grabbing ahold of my meaning and the story I am telling clay seems to work in tandem with me to draw out the figures that inevitably leave both of us behind and enter the world on their own. People have asked me if I hate parting with them and my response is always a bit like Feste’s …
“our play is done,
And we’ll strive to please you every day.”