My background and experience is in the literal and concrete. I have been a law professor at the University of Maine for over twenty years, using my knowledge and skills to address income inequality and to remove barriers to access to civil justice.  As an encaustic artist I have found that my art can also communicate passion, solidarity and a shared hope for the future.  In that way, it can also change minds.

 

Encaustic painting requires a strong physical interaction with materials. Moving wax on a solid surface is a dynamic and corporeal process. I scrape and mold, and sometimes just let the wax move on its own. The transformation of liquid to molten to solid creates movement, texture, depth and relief. I mix my own pigments with beeswax and resin to get the exact color, shade and tone.  Sometimes I struggle to get a message to emerge – and other times it materializes on its own.  My work is abstract and relies on images, form, color, tone, scale and dimension. The encaustic painting process is both elevating and grounding for me.