True Nature at Beppu Wiarda Gallery

August 2008
Curated by Victor Maldonado
also with Rebecca Steel, Kim McKenna, Nika Blasser and Melanie Nakaue

Volitions 1, 2 & 3
wood, fabric, poly-fil, balloons, thread, acrylic case
6 x 28 x 7 ea.

volitions 3: aberration

volitions 1: saboteur

installation view

Volitions 1, 2 & 3

volitions 1: saboteur
a person who sabotages something

volitions 2: recusant
a person who refuses to submit to an authority or to comply with a regulation

volitions 3: aberration
a person whose beliefs or behaviors are unusual or unacceptable; a departure from what is normal, typically unwelcome


Volitions 1, 2 & 3 are a continuation of my installation-based projects using balloons and thread. They have been removed from a larger context and isolated as individual objects for presentation and analysis. The work stems from an interest in notions of idealized feminine identity, gender politics, and psychoanalysis. Through this study, words became a predominant factor for their aesthetic and object-like qualities and for an interest in how they are used to classify, qualify and quantify. In Volitions 1, 2 & 3 words are used to speak to a hidden actress and the systematic rational destruction of her idealized image.

The play with pink balloons came from a childlike fascination with the material as well as an interest in their iconic, familiar and comforting qualities. When full, they are smooth, silky, shimmery and radiant like youthful skin. Once deflated, the balloon is wrinkled, depleted of life, presence, breath and air. Witnessing and having caused this transformation I began to focus on the idea of their passing, with both willful intent and by their very own nature, from an ideal object full of use to a non-object devoid of purpose. Their impermanence, fragility and continuous state of change became an exploration of aging and intimacy and the act of natural and/or willful transformation.

In their current presentation, placed under plastic as specimens or relics, these objects resist object-hood in their potential for further transformation. The pink latex has a memory and seeks to return to its original state. It is a tenuous and resilient material responding to air, pressure, and temperature. Each of these pieces is caught in a state of change and vulnerable to destruction.

powell bute

a continuation...what soon became the "Volition" series

A new direction - a photographic study

The current path hath ended

Its official, to no one who reads this, the passion, dream, blood sweat and tears that I have been working so hard for has come to a close...for now. The dream lives on, but the road has shifted and is now unknown. I must forge ahead and find refuse and creative exploration and expansion in a new job. My term as Director of Programs of Portland Art Center has come to a standstill.

Not much else to say other than that it is a time for change, renewal and mourning.

We have yet to know what path i will lay in which to walk.

Construct/Re-Construct at the Cathedral Park Bldg

October 2007
Curated by Rhoda London
(see review under "reviews & such")

fill me up
29ft long, 15ft high, 8ft wide
balloons, thread, pin nails, gouache painted shadows, text

fill me up

fill me up began with a childlike fascination and curiosity. Many quiet drawings of a lone balloon followed, with many other variations. The balloons were always pink, sometimes floating, other times appearing to be held in mid air or by an unseen source. fill me up was the result of many processes, words, writings, readings and transformations. As I worked with the balloons and their texture and form transformed so did the ideas and concepts behind the work.

What began as a childish exploration moved through the full stages of life into death and what remains is the memory of what was, and a remnant of an old life left hanging to be examined and reflected upon.