I am a visual artist working in collage, assemblage sculpture and altered books. My practice explores identity, memory and the history of the African diaspora. Vintage and contemporary images collide to convey how the past informs the present.


Artfest-day three of classes + Show & Tell

Day three dawned with a deer nibbling at a tree outside our window... relaxed but focused. Kinda like the pace of this day's class.
Things went a lot easier for me on day three, in LK Ludwig's "Open the Doors" journal-making class. And yes, it was partly because I remembered to take notes! Plus this is what, the third class I've taken with her? I think her techniques are so marvelously inventive.

First time with the stencils -- and boy, were there some cool ones.
LK and a few others in class had some of MaryBeth Shaw's stencils: a river rock pattern in the blue pages, a webby pattern in the photo above, bare trees... very cool stuff, as well as the more ordinary ones found at any craft store.
We scraped and smooshed paint (that's my buddy Maya McCauley here)...
 ... sprayed pages, and eventually bound them with waxed linen thread and twill tape.
Barely got mine done, but it did get done so I could run and meet Tally for dinner in Port Townsend. We had a few moments to take a couple pics with Catherine, Grace in her kitten-ear hat, and Ricë in her cat-head recycled-plastic hat.
Then we headed off to a quick dinner at Sirens, and rushed back to put some of our artwork out for Show & Tell. The rushing part: bad idea. I got pulled over for speeding. The officer gently reminded me that there are "a grand total of two streets in Port Townsend that have a speed limit over 25 miles per hour." He also pointed out that most of them have no street lights, which could lead to me hitting...
No, I didn't hit a deer. Because I drove at fifteen miles per hour after that traffic stop.
We made it back just fine, and I put down my card next to my (mostly) finished journal.
 So many fabulous pieces, but I'm running out of time and your attention span, so I'll leave you with Tally's girly peacock fish (a Traci Bautista class)...
 ... and some others I really like. (Michael de Meng's classes -- what can I say? I'm a fan girl.)

Sigh... not enough hours in the day, or days in Artfest, to take all the classes.

"Represented by..."

Artfest-day two of classes + Vendor Night