Here are a few detail photos from a couple of pieces I recently created. There is currently an exhibit at the Art and Invention Gallery called "Scent: an Art Experiment." The following is an excerpt of a note I sent to a friend, and it sums it up nicely...
LETTER TO A FRIEND IN OREGON....
"...i am soon to take part in a group showing at that little gallery i took you to over in east nashville, and it is called 'scent: an art experiment.' meg, the gallery owner, gave each artist two vials of scented oil, which we are to breathe in, meditate upon, and from which i am currently deriving inspiration for art works. of the two she gave me, one of them smells like the dark brown sticky liquid mom used to give us girls when we were coughing, the name of which escapes me -- it's a name you'd expect to see written all scrolly and swirly on the side of a wooden wagon in a traveling medicine show. and the other one...
i opened the tiny little glass tube and the stringent, soapy, pine-clean scent filled my head and rushed me back to a scene two years ago (almost exactly) of sitting outside in the hot tub underneath the canopy of evergreens, my face to the cold night sky and staring at more stars than i've ever seen in one sitting, and singing [patty griffin's] 'tomorrow night' at your unrelenting request. i am now creating a piece based on that memory, and shall send you a photo when i finish it. don't worry, it doesn't feature a painting of us in our suits -- i just wouldn't dare.
isn't it amazing what half an ounce of little old smelly oil does to one's memory?! it's astounding! so i just thought i should let you know i'm exposing our little starlit moment to the world. or at least the greater nashville population. we'll see if anyone catches on to how marvelous it really was...."
