The Marriage Proposals

International Museum of Art and Science
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Tamaulipas

The Marriage Proposals are trophies of the heart, commemorating important men in my life who considered spending their lives with me. Each tells a poetic story with words and images. The poems between the open and closed experiences reveal the private essence of the relationship that is hidden under the portraits. The installation is 9' long; oversized pendants, fabricated with sterling silver and copper and heavy with emotional weight, and hung on mounts from rubber cords.

360 Walks with Justinian

International Museum of Art and Science

The eight panels record 360 walks with my late pug, Justinian. Because he had ruptured a cervical disk resulting in nerve damage to his hind legs causing abrasions on the tops of his feet when walking on pavement, I made these boots to protect his feet during our evening walks. Before each walk, a new pair of boots was made from athletic bandage and electrical tape; at the end of the walk, they were cut off. A visual record of good and bad weather, long and short walks. Panel 1-Walking though dried Bermuda grass, Panel 2-Walking across the asphalt driveway, Panel 3-Walking across a hard ground cover, Panel 4-Walking by the flower bed, Panel 5-Walking on the gravel in the alley, Panel 6-Walking down the street, Panel 7-Walking on the cement, Panel 8-Walking though dried Bermuda grass.

The Bicameral Face

Brownsville Museum of Fine Art
International Museum of Art and Science

We're all aware of the asymmetry of the human face, so I decided to explore an interesting theory by Julian Jaynes that might partially explain it. Our faces visually reflect both sides of our brain, defined by Jaynes as the master brain and the facilitator (intuitive vs logical). Bucky Fuller referred to our intuitive side, the master brain, as his Phantom Captain - where the brain gets ideas. The logical side, the facilitator, carries them out. My digital photographic portraits identify the effects of this structure on the faces of 12 creative individuals who rely on inner knowledge on a daily basis. I designed two complete facial personas for each individual to accompany their blended, normal face. Their Commander (master) side generally shows a more intense expression, while the Facilitator seems more submissive.

Brownsville Museum of Fine Art

In this era of overpowering material culture with its rapid accumulations of waste and excess, Earthclouds are frontier replacements of the natural world, which seems to be gradually disappearing. Ropa Usadas with huge piles of excess clothing and fabrics are complete embodiments of consumer excess and theoretically, every complex phenomenon can have consciousness. So, I posit, from the Ropas, rags have gained consciousness and are forming a primitive society. The jewelry represents crossover inspiration for a seemingly unrelated art form where there is no reference to natural reality left. The material world has won. But it’s still all the same energy.

Kika De La Garza Fine Art Center

In-Retrospect consists of thirty-two panels, each reflecting a passage in my life. Utilizing photographs beginning at 18 months and continuing to the age of 65, personal poems and thoughts are combined to capture the remembered characteristics of the time passages. Photographic decals are adhered to acrylic sheet over the digital-print image. Each measures 22”x 30”.

I became very interested in how fonts could be broken and digitally manipulated into formal shapes when I found a coding quirk in the early Freehand software. I wrote poems to provide meaning to the exploration of this form, and the resulting formations began to reflect personal states of my life. Old photographs complemented the poems, and about half-way through, I realized that I was creating a temporally linear self-portrait.

Jackrabbits

McAllen Convention Center
McAllen Public Library

Created in collaboration with sculptor, Douglas Clark, the Jackrabbits Public Sculpture Project was commissioned by the City of McAllen to represent the Rio Grande Valley’s wildlife heritage. The three sculptures celebrate animals that can survive in what may be seen as harsh conditions, and with development overtaking their habitat, we may soon only be able to celebrate the ghosts of those wonderful hares. The three sculptures are constructed of 6 powder-coated steel parts each measuring 5’ x 3’ and were designed to be aligned with the glances of passers-by – as though the rabbits’ speedy movement blurred their image. Initially installed at the Convention Center, they later moved to the open grounds of the McAllen Public Library.