Painting

I began painting leaves and trees for my Hedgerow and Ascot furniture collections and painted with pigments diluted in turpentine. I used glazes created from UTC (Universal tinting colorants) to create translucent layers of color which I applied over a gold or silver leaf base. My first commissioned painting in 2000 was for an elaborate bombe toy chest which portrayed animals, birds and insects parading through a landscape of trees carved in cherry. My current paintings are part of a story told through sculpture and painting of insectophile humanoids, insects and birds who inhabit a fictional world of mangroves, agaves and Ficus trees connected by a network of fungi. In this landscape gourdes are hewn and repurposed to make rustic dwellings and other structures and farming is a collaborative process involving beetles and humanoids. This is a world where most inhabitants peacefully co-exist.