REACTING

During the COVID era --- perhaps before and after; time has lost its meaning to me --- there were several significant current events that prompted me to create some conceptual pieces in manic response.

The first was the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe versus Wade, a ruling I and my generation spoke out, marched, and voted for. The fact that its ruling came in response to a case brought about by my home town (Jackson MS) just made it worse.

"SCOTUS: ALL HAIL
SCOTUS: AW HELL!"

or "RX: ERECTION; RX: ELECTION" 
​2022, gold leaf on plastic fertilizer spreader filled with (faux) Viagra, on
  an American flag design (made in China), plaster base,  44" x 15" x 11"

Just a warning to anyone who decides to "fake" viagra or any subject that might require locating its color. Of course I looked up the famous pill to see what "blue" it is, and since then --- every single day since then! --- my email files, both "scam" and "inbox," have over 100 messages from overseas pharmacies. One posts (dozens of times a day) in capital letters: CANADIAN PHARNACY. I only opened one of these hundreds of emails ads one time, and it was in a language I did not know with links to all sorts of things. I went no farther. You are warned.

"COLOR LESSON"
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"Color Lesson," 2022, 11" x 85", card stock 

Even though I come from the deepest south --- Mississippi --- and even though ALL my immediate family and close friends were/are liberals who, like my parents, helped  the city/state to desegregate and equalize treatment of the Black population, the book  CASTE  by Marilyn Ferguson 
was a stunning lesson and should be required reading of every American, not just us Southerners. Words, labels, and facts I never knew immediately focused my creative energy on a way to transmit some of what I learned. Two explanatory notes are posted nearby. (With apologies for crookedness of long-distance lettering...)

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And to share this information with friends, I made the piece into a small fold-out (and amateurish) "book" clamped shut with a black, white, and gray elastic band. Each of the "covers" (not shown below) contain the "blood-red" hand print on black (front) and white (back)

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PAN PAN

Compared to the previous two projects, this 2023 one is free of political or historical significance. It is truly a self-portrait.

Its story: I married when I was very young (20) and had not, until then, ever cooked a single thing. EVER! Oh, maybe toast? Probably not.
So in 1968 I began to cook, and my favorite baking pan lived stacked along with newer and cleaner ones. Finally, 55+ years later, I sacrificed it to Art, elegantly framed to signify its importance. To me.

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