The work before Graduate School at UF...

"What you carried inside you when you walked through the door was this ability. It is your ability to apprehend beauty, or lack of it. It is your ability to listen. And change, or be changed..."
~ Mary Ruefle
'Madness, Rack, and Honey'

July has kept me on my toes as I prepare for my big move to graduate school at University of Florida! Even in the midst of the long list of "things to do" I have still made an effort to create work...and how can I not? All these ideas and the questions I ask myself about the work I am making and the changes I have made and that I will make. The year of 2015 has already been one of big transitions! 

I have been feeling more consistency in the figures I am drawing and the series of techniques to create the work, so I have begun exploring different forms and different design styles. I hope to take this work to a very large scale once in school...but in the mean time things will remain small. Here are some images of work in process while in the studio.

I also got my hands on some large scale paper!!! It was a wonderful feeling to continue drawing the figure and take it large while I wait to get settled in at school. I tend to work well in the larger scale...creating looser and more fluid drawings. 

As I become more efficient with the drawings and materials, I plan to expand beyond independent forms and create images that interact with another. Each image is entirely dependent on the spontaneity of the brush strokes and colors, but I do believe as I work more in this style that I have subconsciously begun to see figures as early as the first application of color. 

I continue to have conversations regarding the new work I am making. Many questions as to "why nude?" and "why female?" I have always had a passion for figure drawing, especially working with the nude figure. It was a focus of mine while in undergrad and before my passion for clay really began. As a female, I of course feel connected to the female body and know it best. 

Though I also feel a fascination towards what, in my eyes, the nude figure represents...vulnerability, strength, and sensuality. Three qualities I hope to portray in my work.