In my work, I grapple with public and private grief, melding the personal and the political. My longtime career as an animation artist, my filmmaking experience, and my degree in art history informs the art I make now.
In 1980, I opened Chelsea Animation Company in New York City, where I employed a team of artists and specialized in hand rendering commercials, shorts, features, and independent films. I later opened a second enterprise to restore collectable animation cels for clients, some of whom purchased art from Sotheby’s and Christie’s auctions. I continued to run both businesses after moving to Richmond, Virginia, in the 1990s. In Richmond I also collaborated with 2 writers to make a documentary film about a local peace activist who was awarded an international peace prize, Marii Hasegawa. The film premiered at the James River Film Festival and was broadcast on the PBS affiliate, WCVE-TV.
I turned to studying and creating fine art to ease the destructive chaos I was experiencing, internally and externally, from a deep personal loss and from society’s collective losses—the worsening injustices here and abroad and the unabated threats to our planet. I gather images that strike me emotionally and sit with them until a process emerges. I work in the medium and style that best conveys my emotions at that moment. In re-experiencing loss, I hope to heal myself and console others as well.
I have been in numerous local shows and is now a member of Artspace Gallery in Richmond, Virginia.