ARTIST STATEMENT : BOOKBINDING + ENCAUSTIC

I am an artist working with encaustic beeswax, and I am also a bookbinder. My encaustic book sculptures and journals are designed to honor books as an art form; they are a visual conversation between wax, paper, and thread.

I especially enjoy dreaming up new structural forms and innovative stitches. My intention when creating book sculptures is to personify concepts through the interaction of pages and covers. Individual books are sewn together with Coptic binding in unique combinations of Dos-a-Dos or Gatefold structures.

These complex, challenging bindings expand my personal boundaries, and there is a push and pull between the creative chaos of artistic design and the calm meditation of binding the books. I become centered, refreshed, as I go through the motions of tearing page after page and sewing book after book.

I also bind journals for display and for personal use. The Butterfly preserves found wings and is bound with my own Butterfly Stitch. The Blue Ridge Book features a mountain panorama and is bound with my own Weave Stitch.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY : INTROSPECTIVE + RETROSPECTIVE

Books, how I love books. I love them brand new, pristine with blank pages, primed for possibilities. I love them softened and worn and filled with messy yet beautiful thoughts, words, and sketches. When I discovered bookbinding, I was stunned to my core and thought “I could do this every day… forever.”

For years encaustic and bookbinding were separate entities in my life, the art and the craft, the experimental and the meditative, and then they converged. Combining them was a spontaneous collaboration. I was experimenting with encaustics on thin panels and the panels that were grouped together started to resemble one another. It seemed natural to connect them as book covers. I made my first small batch and fell in love, cartwheels and all.

I am continually refining my skills, building my repertoire, and exploring new processes. I am currently captivated by beeswax infused visual journal pages and wax on paper possibilities such as encaustic monotype printmaking. It is fulfilling to see my individual (and seemingly separate) facets commingle, converse, converge, and travel in delightful, unexpected directions.

GALLERY REPRESENTATION

My artwork is represented by the following galleries: Lucy Clark Gallery, Penland Gallery, Bascom Gallery Shop, and Southern Highland Craft Guild. Additionally, work may be on exhibit in another gallery, museum, or venue.

Please feel welcome to contact me regarding artwork availability and I will be happy to connect you with the representing gallery. I am also available for commissions, custom work, and interior design projects. For news on classes, collections, exhibitions and events, please join my newsletter.

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