Over the past two years I focused on three areas of approach to the painting process: temperament, medium and subject matter. I began by concentrating my efforts on a solid working mode by evaluating everything about my daily routine in the studio. The desire to understand the working/creative process, naturally lead me to working with new mediums and to understanding how I arrived at the subject matter in my work. During the first semester I was involved in understanding — what I did not realize at the time — a working attitude. I was used to working on my own — without interruptions or people watching my progress.

Overwhelmed by all the new sets of eyes in my life — my response was to paint an image called "Zoo"¹⁰. "Zoo", was a narrative image of large flower faces with eyes staring at me. I felt like an animal in a zoo because of the frequent analysis, interruptions and construction noise in the graduate studio area. Ironically, the faces in the "Zoo" painting resembled some of the spectators — professors and fellow students — coming in and out of my studio at the time. Because I was adjusting to a new environment, I decided it might be a good idea to take a fresh look at how I liked to work, i.e. my working attitude. The first thing I did was to set up the studio. There had to be a flow to the working space. I arranged the room so that it became a `work space and `or' gallery. I also began thinking about my work habits. I asked myself questions like — what is the best time of day to paint? I learned the best time of day to paint was when I had a strong urge to get an image out. This could be any time of day as long as I was not tired. I learned that mood had nothing to do with productivity. The most successful work was produced after an idea stirred around in my head for a few days. I showed up everyday and worked even when I didn't feel like working. I realized that consistency in the working process was important for developing ideas. But consistency didn't always produce the best work. The best work usually came out when I was hungry to work. There was a certain attitude I felt at this time — a need to feed the hunger.

I also thought about how I painted. In the past I only painted on unstretched canvas — with acrylic paint — stapled to a wall. I tried painting on the floor — painting on tables and painting on stretched canvas. I learned that when I painted on a table surface I could manipulate the paint easier. I also learned that I could use all or none of these methods on any given painting. My old method of working was like going into the kitchen and cooking a large meal — using the same ingredients each time. I was insatiable and painted with intense ferocity to complete the image. My new methods were broadening the work because the ingredients had changed.

I began experimenting with different mediums such as: chalk, graphite, oil paint, wax, plaster, bamboo, straw, string, and cotton. I would heat the wax, mix up the plaster and make objects out of the images I was drawing from my head. I was going into the studio every day and cooking up a big mess. This was a period of broad experimentation, which lead to building three-dimensional objects from the drawings being produced.

Also during this period, I was thinking more about how I arrived at and utilized subject matter in my work. There were many discussions with Professor Craig, Professor Klank, and Mrs. Truitt and Professor DeMonte regarding the paintings I was producing. The discussions pointed out that I was spending too much time on technique and not enough time on processing paint — yet subject matter was never discussed. Since subject matter is an important part of my work, I decided to take a careful look at what it meant to me and why I was painting imagery such as: washboards, fish, birds, coffee pots, wing back chairs and homeless people.

I started by making an inventory of all the single objects in my sketch journals used in previous paintings. I found that I used objects — like the fish — as a tool to inspire me to paint. Subject matter in my work is an ongoing narrative — based on situations or "dramas" — that occur in everyday life. Each narrative or object represents an important event in the past, present or future. The sketch journals also uncovered that artists such as Elizabeth Murray and Joan Brown —who also painted at home — inspired me. Like myself, these women artists were using subject matter in their work from around the house. I discovered I was doing the same. Each object, such as a washboard or a fish had personal meaning to me.

I started drawing the objects — in singular and narrative form — that I uncovered from the list of objects compiled from the old sketch journals. Since I had never placed any emphasis on drawing before — except for thumbnail sketches — I found I liked the process of drawing. I began to draw every day. I drew theatre stages next to objects and used several perspectives on the same picture plane. I imagined the objects were characters in a play. I started to play with space and scale in the imagery, which then led me into building three-dimensional forms out of the narratives. I even built a small stage out of bamboo. I built heads and bodies out of bamboo. I mixed the wax with weeds and paint and cotton and sculpted with it. I poured paint and sprayed into paint with turpentine and linseed oil mixtures.

When I went into my studio and worked with all the new mediums I felt like a chef cooking up a grand meal. At this point I was completely immersed in the process of processing. I wasn't thinking about what I was doing or why and producing a tremendous amount of work.

After identifying and drawing all the objects — and their meanings — I revisited old paintings. I asked myself what was working, — in these old paintings — what wasn't working and why? I asked myself if these paintings were asking me questions. Then I decided to paint an old painting of an image called "Fish Pot"¹¹.

The first time I painted "Fish Pot" was two years before. "Fish Pot" is a narrative scene of a head inside a glass coffeepot — juxtaposed with a fish head on top of the coffeepot. I was inspired to paint "Fish Pot" because I was comparing being an artist to being a coffee maker. I visualized being the coffee maker. I imagined hot water flowing through me until every drop has emptied from the chamber and into the pot, to be filled up once again and emptied. It was this idea that I transformed into a narrative painting. Consequently, when I painted "Fish Pot II"¹², there was still some uncertainty about what I had done. I asked Professor Craig and Professor DeMonte to comment on the imagery. They both used terms like implied narrative, juxtaposition and metaphor. When I painted "Fish Pot" four years ago, I was completely unaware of how I transformed the subject of being an artist into a metaphor. I didn't know that I had painted a metaphor and that I had done something new in my work. I thought it would be a good idea to return to my old sketchbooks again and review the thought processes that lead up to the fish narratives. I realized that the fish image appeared one day out of the blue as a tool to challenge the viewer. In the past I would literally describe the narrative using objects that gave away too much information to the viewer. I began using objects like the fish — which represented other objects — to camouflage literal meaning. I uncovered the fact that I use metaphor to amplify poetic allusion. I now realized how the metaphor in "Fish Pot" was working within the narrative of the painting? But I still needed to know how I arrived at the metaphor.

Metaphor is used in the English language to imply a comparison between two things. Metaphor is how we think. I wanted to figure out how I could apply it to my work. I needed to figure out how I transformed the idea of being an artist into a metaphor and ultimately into a painting.

Several days passed and I became more and more frustrated. How do I manufacture a metaphor from an idea? Completely frustrated — I gave up and what happened next was miraculous. I woke in the middle of the night and began writing metaphors about life as a fish. I wrote for hours that night. The poetry that came out of the writing ignited new imagery and a new way of thinking.

After going through this process, I finally understood how I arrived at the metaphor in "Fish Pot". I learned that generating a metaphor is about becoming the object. In this case — I became the fish. Consequently, by imagining that I became the object and thought like the object, I viewed the world from the objects point of view. I changed my way of thinking and now it was simply a matter of applying this new approach to my work.

I started to work on a series of drawings — using the idea of drawing from the objects point of view. An image emerged one day in the drawings called "Head Swing"¹³. The image was of a head, with ropes on the ears, swinging in mid air, next to a theatre stage. Like the "Fish Pot", I was drawing from the objects point of view. In this case I was imagining my head swinging. I got the idea from thinking about relationships. I was imagining how it feels to be pushed and pulled in relationships — it felt like a head swinging — my head swinging. At this point I realized that the objects in my imagery represented me. I used objects — like the fish, bird and washboard — in the narrative to represent myself — disguised in the imagery. Metaphor is a way to describe my feelings about personal situations in my life and relationships. Metaphor is the mental playground for my paintings.

I also built a head swing out of plaster, paint and rope. The objects I built became part of the objects in the narratives that was painted. All the prior imagery seemed to be recycling itself at this point. I was building the images I drew and then painting the images I built. I started to explore the idea of space and balance. I was not only looking at the imagery from the objects point of view, but also looking at the objects I built and how they affected space and subject matter.

I experimented with three-dimensional objects interacting with paintings. I used the head swing sculpture to complete a painting called "Man, Fish, or Fowl — No Different"¹⁴. I placed the "Head Swing" in front of the painting to complete the composition. The composition consisted of a large bird on one side of the painting and a large fish on the other side of the painting. The painting needed an element — object — in the middle to balance the two large elements on either side. I chose to balance the composition with a three dimensional object in front of the picture plane. I did this with the "Head Swing" sculpture. I placed the sculpture two feet out from the painting — in the middle of the composition — thus balancing the composition.

The three dimensional objects I built, helped strengthen the structure of the painting compositions by forcing me to look at space differently — using three-dimensional space. The compositions began to become more about how the objects are interacting with one another and less about the imagery in the narrative. I began to edit the imagery by concentrating less on the meaning of the subject matter and more on the arrangement of objects in the narrative. By combining what I learned about attitude, medium and subject matter, I began to paint with the understanding that each painting is like a portion of a huge meal that is never really finished and always being prepared.