51 degrees

Folks, it's fa fa freezing here. Yes, I do live in San Francisco and you are right, I have absolutely nothing to whine about when it comes to weather. Still it is very cold here, it dipped under 32 degrees last night and much lower in areas surrounding San Francisco. I hear the North East of the United States is having it's warmest winter on record according to my dear friend, finder of back roads and keeper of miscellaneous weather facts, M.C. Why am I talking about the weather you may wonder? Well as I mentioned before I am preparing work for my show at Xen Gallery in February and some of my new work has a lot to do with the weather and how the change is affecting climates which in turn is affecting wild life. Think polar bears.

It is not like me to use my work as a platform to talk about global warming. I usually don't go for the big statement or the political and I am not trying to spread world peace with my work. I make my work from a very personal place. Beauty has a lot to do with it. I like beautiful things and I am not ashamed of making beautiful things. I love nature. I find people fascinating. I find life often has quiet, small stories with bigger meanings woven into our everyday activities. I take all of this information and translate it into my own visual vocabulary and record it on my work. Kinda simple, huh? So what has changed? I am asking myself this very question as I work. I haven't quite come to any final conclusions yet and it is challenging for me to talk about it, much less write about it. I am very excited about this new direction with my work but also feeling a little unsure. It is like making a speech in a language you just learned. I know I'll be saying a lot of sentences backwards and certain common expressions may sound awkward. None the less, I can't wait to start showing you what I have been up to. Images will be coming soon.

To keep me in check and to help me experience the full effect of our unusually cold temperatures I have been making the work in my very cold studio that does not have warm running water. The thermometer inside the studio has been reading 51 degrees this past week. There you will find me bundled up, five layers deep in clothing, etching away and thinking about the plight of the polar bear.