TECHNICAL | DRAWING SOURCES
MODEL
I have been using the same model, a friend and fellow artist, since 1972. Since I draw very slowly, I started taking photographs of her to be more efficient with her time and more flexible with mine. Over time, we both moved from California, where we met. We’ve been living 2,000 miles apart for decades, but our close relationship has remained intact. Over those years, I visited her for about a week at a time, every 6 or 7 years, to go over themes and projects that have concerned me, and taking the appropriate pictures. The last time we got together for a photo session was a long time ago, although we’ve seen each other since and talk to each other regularly. Although I did not start out to accumulate an archive of a woman aging, I have inadvertently done so, which has been a treasure. It has been very important for me to use a model that is a close friend, for two reasons. First, since I draw so slowly, it is wonderful to spend so much time drawing someone who you hold dear. Second, my friend modeled exclusively for me, and as a non-professional model, allowed for openness and an emotional vulnerability in her response to the camera, and me.
APPROPRIATED IMAGERY
My imagery incorporates information both inspired and provoked by text and images found in mid-twentieth century publications on themes such as home management and decoration, health, education and home repair. Reading etiquette books from the entire twentieth century has been a good content source. The ignition for this body of work, both to my delight and exasperation, started with my own Girl Scout handbooks of the late 50s, as well as browsing through my family photo albums, which has been helpful in establishing period customs.
Wallpaper coverings, especially toile patterns, are also incorporated into my work. The romanticization of domestic history is particularly marked in toile wallpaper patterns and thus integral to my work. I have also invented my own patterns, combining and layering decorative work and figuration from many unrelated sources. It has also been hard for me not to respond to current fashion advertising images, so they, too, are embraced in the work. More recently, I have included open source material from museum collections of the nineteenth century, and they too, have been integrated into my visual vocabulary.