I am obsessed with line, the most basic element of art, a mark made by human assertion, an indication of the self awareness. We seek its definitive absolution, its calming assurance that there is something to be done with this condition we find ourselves in.. We can make a mark, we can leave a mark.and in so doing we stay alive.
The line then essentially encompasses everything we know with any clarity, simply because we can make a line. That line then can become anything, from the most simple self mark to our most treasured sophisticated symbols of human communication, of math, science,language.
As an artist I have always been in love with the line. I began making art by drawing, the act of making lines to suggest images or shapes.
Lately my obsession seeks the reassurance of the ultimate line, the horizon line.The one line that remains a a mystery, distant, an unreachable illusion, yet constant, there to offer its its dependable stillness.
Like a voyager on a stormy sea I look to the horizon, seeking its serenity to calm my life's anxiety.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Kate Miller in MOCA, UNF Faculty exhibit
Kate Miller is pleased to participate in the Museum of Contemprary Art, MOCA, UNF faculty Art and Design Exhibition. Go to : http://www.mocajacksonville.org/current/10-UNF-faculty
Friday, September 23, 2011
My Secrets of Beauty and Joy( or Directions for Avoidance of the Pain of Contemporary Life
A FEW DIRECTIONS FOR SAFELY HANGING ON TO THE AMERICAN DREAM:
Begin each status quo awakening by infiltrating your bloodstream with sufficient enough amounts of cardboard cupped caffeinated fuel to face the assault of pornographic heinous violence and, sticky soft pop that greets your sleepy-eyed morning.
Continue to amp your metabolic racing resistance on your treadmill to submission until your self-righteousness is filled with enough zeal to eradicate dissatisfaction, pity or creativity.
In the case of continued tingling emotional empathy or stirring original thought, add 10 or more milligrams of preferred Watson or Phizer product , (Prozac, Xanax, Adderall) or read mind-numbing morning meditations and/or your choice of Religious dogma until necessary apathy is achieved.
With take-out plastic topped Starbucks in hand and blue-toothed insulation in-ear, settle into your leather seat-belted-carbon-emitting shiny American/Japanese SUV. Accelerate to 70 mph to enabling passage through abject poverty and repulsive homelessness that remain only vaguely visable in the moving background. Do not for any reason slow down or disengage consumption of beverage or talk radio.
Chat, twitter and text along with the bombardment of noisy static designed to protect you from any terrifying revelations of silence . Sing your favorite Walmart, MacDonalds or other corporate jingle to create a comfortable zombie-like semi-consciousness.
A FEW NECESSARY PRECAUTIONS:
Hold fast to a local events calendar to enable escape planning, purchase as much as possible to ensure fulfillment of your American rights and duties and X off the passing days towards anticipated holidays, parties,festivals, games and other events. Stay as busy and engaged as possible to avoid possible long droughts of desperation or famines of fear. Drink large amounts of numbing alcohol and seek psychotronic medication if necessary. Other suggestions for snapping yourself out of threatening self reflection include; purchasing season tickets for the home team game hysteria ,a great way to express your frustration, or joining The Club to re-assure your position of righteousness and satisfy the need for belonging.
If neither the game nor the club re-ignites your Patriotic and Righteous unconsciousness, go quickly and often to the nearest mall. There you will surely find comfort in the washed out musac while losing unwanted pieces of nagging soul. After you have consumed copious amounts of food products from the Mall Court and maxed out your newest credit extension return to your suburban domicile and quickly turn on your Mega sized HDTV to your favorite show already in progress and ready to bring you back to "reality".
DANGEROUS MOMENTS TO AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
Never, I repeat, never, allow enough solitude, self-analysis or empty air time for original thoughts that may disturb your precarious balance of sanity and pretension with doubts of the realness of your existence and certainty that each breath brings you closer to oblivion.
Always be aware the waiting ambush that no amount of boy-scout, teacher-organized, five-year planned preparation can prevent, when a piercing pain, indistiguishable from pleasure, attacks you in an unprotected moment with a sudden vision of shining and unexpected beauty so glorious it may shatter your construct of power and purpose.
With trepidition and caution, bravely go forth knowing there is not medicine, religion or therapy sufficient to arm you from surprising and overwhelming moments of ecstatic joy so engulfing as to reveal a possibility of another reality, unknown dimension, or positive mental state of enlightenment.
To these ends I endure my life.
Begin each status quo awakening by infiltrating your bloodstream with sufficient enough amounts of cardboard cupped caffeinated fuel to face the assault of pornographic heinous violence and, sticky soft pop that greets your sleepy-eyed morning.
Continue to amp your metabolic racing resistance on your treadmill to submission until your self-righteousness is filled with enough zeal to eradicate dissatisfaction, pity or creativity.
In the case of continued tingling emotional empathy or stirring original thought, add 10 or more milligrams of preferred Watson or Phizer product , (Prozac, Xanax, Adderall) or read mind-numbing morning meditations and/or your choice of Religious dogma until necessary apathy is achieved.
With take-out plastic topped Starbucks in hand and blue-toothed insulation in-ear, settle into your leather seat-belted-carbon-emitting shiny American/Japanese SUV. Accelerate to 70 mph to enabling passage through abject poverty and repulsive homelessness that remain only vaguely visable in the moving background. Do not for any reason slow down or disengage consumption of beverage or talk radio.
Chat, twitter and text along with the bombardment of noisy static designed to protect you from any terrifying revelations of silence . Sing your favorite Walmart, MacDonalds or other corporate jingle to create a comfortable zombie-like semi-consciousness.
A FEW NECESSARY PRECAUTIONS:
Hold fast to a local events calendar to enable escape planning, purchase as much as possible to ensure fulfillment of your American rights and duties and X off the passing days towards anticipated holidays, parties,festivals, games and other events. Stay as busy and engaged as possible to avoid possible long droughts of desperation or famines of fear. Drink large amounts of numbing alcohol and seek psychotronic medication if necessary. Other suggestions for snapping yourself out of threatening self reflection include; purchasing season tickets for the home team game hysteria ,a great way to express your frustration, or joining The Club to re-assure your position of righteousness and satisfy the need for belonging.
If neither the game nor the club re-ignites your Patriotic and Righteous unconsciousness, go quickly and often to the nearest mall. There you will surely find comfort in the washed out musac while losing unwanted pieces of nagging soul. After you have consumed copious amounts of food products from the Mall Court and maxed out your newest credit extension return to your suburban domicile and quickly turn on your Mega sized HDTV to your favorite show already in progress and ready to bring you back to "reality".
DANGEROUS MOMENTS TO AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
Never, I repeat, never, allow enough solitude, self-analysis or empty air time for original thoughts that may disturb your precarious balance of sanity and pretension with doubts of the realness of your existence and certainty that each breath brings you closer to oblivion.
Always be aware the waiting ambush that no amount of boy-scout, teacher-organized, five-year planned preparation can prevent, when a piercing pain, indistiguishable from pleasure, attacks you in an unprotected moment with a sudden vision of shining and unexpected beauty so glorious it may shatter your construct of power and purpose.
With trepidition and caution, bravely go forth knowing there is not medicine, religion or therapy sufficient to arm you from surprising and overwhelming moments of ecstatic joy so engulfing as to reveal a possibility of another reality, unknown dimension, or positive mental state of enlightenment.
To these ends I endure my life.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Whistling pretty songs
My work is that of finding connections between vast spaces of emptiness. I am on constant watch for those things that seem to somehow synthesize the disparate and seemingly meaningless moments of daily life. I am a an investigator, in search of proof.
As a child I did not question my life. I simply believed in the myths that I was given. I went to Sunday school for my soul and public school for my mind. I was loved by my family and had many freinds. A life of rich relations, comfort and success was my heritage. I found all the promises glorious, and had no reason to doubt, I had faith in the infinity of the earth and took solace in the immortality of my soul. I was the product of American 1950s idealism, a true believer.
As I got a little older the turmoil of the sixties began to rock my proverbial boat and Donna Read gave way to images of Viet Nam and Civil Rights marches. I began to question. Lingering insecurity began its job of deterioration.
At my home we had crisis of our own and soon my Father would leave the happy household for another apparently happier one. So, undying love, family above all, blood over money? Scams, all of them, nothing but air, cliches. What then was real?.
I began to send out messages, prayers, desparate pleas, searching need, they all told me that Jesus would hear, he would listen and he would respond He had after all, died for me, he loved me and would undoubtedly be there if only I tried hard enough to reach out. I had many questions for Jesus and so I in my childish voice sent out prayers of pure and naiive simplicity, prayers that only a true heart could utter. I prayed long and hard to the blond sweet faced barefoot man I had seen in the Golden books and on the Sunday School posters in the childrens room. I needed answers about his bigger plan, surely there must be one. And so Ibegan with all of my young earnest effort to say the right words, I tried the ones I had been taught and I tried my own ,I sang the songs and worked to purify my thoughts,still none got through.
My freinds, my cousins,my family all seemed to have secret personal relationships with the almighty but I was ignored..
Eventually I decided that either Jesus was a lie like Santa Claus or a sort of comforting idea like a Teddy Bear to hold on to at night. Either way he wasnt there, not for me. I watched and listened for clues to what it all meant. Discovering no path to Jesus I concluded that they all were in on the conspiracy, it was a plot and I was an outsider.
Jesus asked me, "Are you saved? I didnt know what that meant, but Jimi (aka Hendrix) asked " Are you experienced?" To that I could relate.
So life my adolescence became about living from one moment to the next, making enough noise and commotion to fill the empty spaces. I was fine as long as nothing stopped, so I kept on moving. TV, music,drugs, parties, the opposite sex, and the buzz of life created enough static to avoid the vacancy I saw in the mirror.
Eventually I settled into some patterns, found things I liked, people I could tolerate and a way of life that seemed, well if not the American Dream, at least full of surprises and moments of ecstatic joy and along the way somewhere I discovered the beauty of silence.
At some point it became clear to me that all those people and institutions and books that had made all those declarations of truth and absolution were just lies, they were all just whistling pretty songs. Their deception was not evil or devious, instead they whistled as a way to feel peace, music can do that you know, a temporary solace.
Now with the very earth in peril, my children's children's lives unsure and nothing safe to hang a dream on , I love and I make art. I look and listen, read, write and watch. I collect and synthesize, seeking out even the vaguest of connections. Serendipity is my faithful servant, the sound of the ocean, the sun on my face, the touch of my loyal lover, the only proof I look for now.
My art is about the re-assimilation of fragmentation.The underlying armatures continue to break in front of my eyes but in the spaces that sometimes appear I find moments of peace. I cant for the life of me quite remember the tunes of those old pretty songs and in their absence I find a silence. It is the emptiness of ongoing pain and endless stife of living.
I have a constant need to build and repair the damage even as it continues in front of my eyes. It is my essential quest, to repair, to patch, to build .The work never ends but with enough effort I am able to piece together something, enough to hang my life on.
As a child I did not question my life. I simply believed in the myths that I was given. I went to Sunday school for my soul and public school for my mind. I was loved by my family and had many freinds. A life of rich relations, comfort and success was my heritage. I found all the promises glorious, and had no reason to doubt, I had faith in the infinity of the earth and took solace in the immortality of my soul. I was the product of American 1950s idealism, a true believer.
As I got a little older the turmoil of the sixties began to rock my proverbial boat and Donna Read gave way to images of Viet Nam and Civil Rights marches. I began to question. Lingering insecurity began its job of deterioration.
At my home we had crisis of our own and soon my Father would leave the happy household for another apparently happier one. So, undying love, family above all, blood over money? Scams, all of them, nothing but air, cliches. What then was real?.
I began to send out messages, prayers, desparate pleas, searching need, they all told me that Jesus would hear, he would listen and he would respond He had after all, died for me, he loved me and would undoubtedly be there if only I tried hard enough to reach out. I had many questions for Jesus and so I in my childish voice sent out prayers of pure and naiive simplicity, prayers that only a true heart could utter. I prayed long and hard to the blond sweet faced barefoot man I had seen in the Golden books and on the Sunday School posters in the childrens room. I needed answers about his bigger plan, surely there must be one. And so Ibegan with all of my young earnest effort to say the right words, I tried the ones I had been taught and I tried my own ,I sang the songs and worked to purify my thoughts,still none got through.
My freinds, my cousins,my family all seemed to have secret personal relationships with the almighty but I was ignored..
Eventually I decided that either Jesus was a lie like Santa Claus or a sort of comforting idea like a Teddy Bear to hold on to at night. Either way he wasnt there, not for me. I watched and listened for clues to what it all meant. Discovering no path to Jesus I concluded that they all were in on the conspiracy, it was a plot and I was an outsider.
Jesus asked me, "Are you saved? I didnt know what that meant, but Jimi (aka Hendrix) asked " Are you experienced?" To that I could relate.
So life my adolescence became about living from one moment to the next, making enough noise and commotion to fill the empty spaces. I was fine as long as nothing stopped, so I kept on moving. TV, music,drugs, parties, the opposite sex, and the buzz of life created enough static to avoid the vacancy I saw in the mirror.
Eventually I settled into some patterns, found things I liked, people I could tolerate and a way of life that seemed, well if not the American Dream, at least full of surprises and moments of ecstatic joy and along the way somewhere I discovered the beauty of silence.
At some point it became clear to me that all those people and institutions and books that had made all those declarations of truth and absolution were just lies, they were all just whistling pretty songs. Their deception was not evil or devious, instead they whistled as a way to feel peace, music can do that you know, a temporary solace.
Now with the very earth in peril, my children's children's lives unsure and nothing safe to hang a dream on , I love and I make art. I look and listen, read, write and watch. I collect and synthesize, seeking out even the vaguest of connections. Serendipity is my faithful servant, the sound of the ocean, the sun on my face, the touch of my loyal lover, the only proof I look for now.
My art is about the re-assimilation of fragmentation.The underlying armatures continue to break in front of my eyes but in the spaces that sometimes appear I find moments of peace. I cant for the life of me quite remember the tunes of those old pretty songs and in their absence I find a silence. It is the emptiness of ongoing pain and endless stife of living.
I have a constant need to build and repair the damage even as it continues in front of my eyes. It is my essential quest, to repair, to patch, to build .The work never ends but with enough effort I am able to piece together something, enough to hang my life on.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Artist Statement
My Identity: I am a mixed media artist. I work in any medium that captures my interest and accomplishes my need.
My process: I begin with a thought, an image, a found object, something overheard or read or sometimes an emotional state. Relationships appear out of random happenstance or deliberation. I rely on serendipity and coincidence as much as cognitive consideration. Chance, choice, process and assimilation eventually makes a connection and the piece resolves itself.
My medium:Although I never rule out any media I am currently infatuated with wax, it is luxurious and sensuous, it melts, melds and creates a membrane for my work. It is indeed the tissue that holds the mirad of stuff that is my work. It is like skin.
My work: I am involved constantly in making my own materials. I buy raw materials and create encaustic medium and encaustic paint. I use my medium and pigments in my work and workshops. I teach foundation classes in an academic setting and mixed media and encaustic workshops in my studio.
My Thoughts: As I work, juxtapositions that seem to randomly happen give reason to the vast disconnection I feel in everyday life and help my efforts to organize the noisy bombardment of stimuli.
I listen, observe seek our and make connections. I draw, paint,and collect and combine , I read and write. My muse is an unconscious intiution and my decisions are an eternal surprise.
The work itself creates and re-creates who I am and who I become. It contains my life and speaks of my experience. My art is a construction of self.
My process: I begin with a thought, an image, a found object, something overheard or read or sometimes an emotional state. Relationships appear out of random happenstance or deliberation. I rely on serendipity and coincidence as much as cognitive consideration. Chance, choice, process and assimilation eventually makes a connection and the piece resolves itself.
My medium:Although I never rule out any media I am currently infatuated with wax, it is luxurious and sensuous, it melts, melds and creates a membrane for my work. It is indeed the tissue that holds the mirad of stuff that is my work. It is like skin.
My work: I am involved constantly in making my own materials. I buy raw materials and create encaustic medium and encaustic paint. I use my medium and pigments in my work and workshops. I teach foundation classes in an academic setting and mixed media and encaustic workshops in my studio.
My Thoughts: As I work, juxtapositions that seem to randomly happen give reason to the vast disconnection I feel in everyday life and help my efforts to organize the noisy bombardment of stimuli.
I listen, observe seek our and make connections. I draw, paint,and collect and combine , I read and write. My muse is an unconscious intiution and my decisions are an eternal surprise.
The work itself creates and re-creates who I am and who I become. It contains my life and speaks of my experience. My art is a construction of self.
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