Artist's Statement

My artwork represents a global examination of matriarchal societies and Madonna-like images. This interest began when I became an adopted daughter to a Micronesian family. I saw how women in matrilineal societies were respected, and how they held the family together with courage and dignity. As I studied other cultures and women's roles within them, I was impressed with the number and diversity of matrilineal cultures in existence - Oceania, Mediterranean, Native and Latin America, Ireland, China, Africa, and India.

Recently, I have become enamored of the Virgin of Guadalupe's impact upon Latin American culture. Her story relates to earlier matriarchal figures of Mexican folk traditions, just as the Virgin Mary and other female Christian saints correlate to earlier folk traditions. These figures fascinate me as elevated persons within cultures; for their capacity to heal, procreate, to be compassionate and grant salvation. Matriarchs protect and bind a family, while madonnas are the 'young mothers' that create them. Life-giving forces emanate from both like water and 'mana'; protecting their young, maintaining the strength of the household.

Presenting these 'frontal' or 'iconic' figures within a spare, compositional format, I include body parts and female organs [milagros], as are often found in Latin American culture. The figures' outer shells [or skin] are sometimes transparent or are 'cut away' to reveal their secrets [body parts], while others contain simple lines, signifying a spiritual presence. Still other figures have external barriers hovering over them, or on their sides, symbolic of social pressures and constraints.

These figures have evolved as have my concerns about women: health (breast and lung cancer), societal issues regarding womens' safety and security (i.e. the killing fields of Juarez, Mexico) and prevention of diminishing feminine strength. Examining these issues through drawing, prints and installations has opened up literal 'lines' of communication to discuss and find common ground. They are a multicultural/ multimedia body of work that is an offering of peace and healing.