I create mixed-media collages, combining painting, drawing, and photography to discover evocative and primal statements that represent a positive awareness of the experiences of aging.
The form and evolution of the kimono that arose during the Edo era in Japan inspires the Kimono format of my art pieces and serves as a window into a culture just before fundamental change. This cloak was called a kosode, a visibly unifying cultural marker in Japanese society between 1603 and 1868. Every Japanese person wore a kimono, regardless of age, gender, or socioeconomic position. On those rare occasions when a Japanese person came into contact with people from other places, one visible distinction was that other cultures did not wear the kimono.
In the Edo culture, the kimono represented inclusion as well as individualization. Yet every person’s kimono was unique in design, expressing that individual's personal and family aspects. As I began working with these kimono images, I found my emerging textures, paintings, and drawings served as narratives of the challenges and wisdom found through the process of aging.
These kimonos reflect an acceptance of the changes that emerge as one gains years and wisdom through the aging process. Textures and colors with rough surfaces emerge, forming images of caverns reflecting an inner change and growing insight. The images resemble an outer space context and present a growth in Cosmic Awareness through the trials, challenges, and fortitude discovered in the aging process.