Just when you think you are on top of your game, life throws you a curve ball. In 2013, my solo show Cornwall [re]Constructed had opened at St Louis Artists' Guild in Clayton, MO.  

My art was also in two invitational shows, Women's Marks at the Edwardsville Arts Center in Edwardsville, IL ...

... and Intertwined at the Jacoby Arts Center in Alton, IL. 

Meanwhile, I taught two papermaking workshops, one at the Jacoby Arts Center in Alton, IL ...

... and the second at Esic Church in Edwardsville, IL.

By mid-August, I was back in my classroom, teaching six art classes a day, Monday through Friday, plus two after-school art clubs, at Oakville Middle School in St. Louis County.

But physically, I hadn't been myself. My clock felt as if the spring had sprung; and I was growing sicker by the day. After a month of treatment for diverticulitis, my gastroenterologist decided to perform a colonoscopy. Instead of finding an infection in my colon, which had began to heal, what he found was anal cancer.

I was very fortunate that my cancer was small and had not spred. I would live through the months of chemo and radiation treatments. 

Just when you think you have life figured out, and all of your plates are spinning up on their little poles, God retunes your attention, and allows you the opportunity to rest, heal and focus on what is truly important - 

faith, family and loving friends. 

Cornwall [re]Constructed - Solo Exhibition

I am very excited to announce the solo exhibition of my handmade paper abstract landscapes, "Cornwall [re]Constructed," opening August 23, 2013 at the 

St. Louis Artists' Guild in Clayton, Missouri. 

This newest series of landscapes [re]constructs divergent tangents of historical meaning and myth, abstracting place over time and space, by building up layers of handmade paper subjected to natural elements that rust, tint, dye, emboss, and inform the marks left behind. 

 

Located on the farthest western tip of the United Kingdom, Cornwall holds two coastlines (the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean) and is divided from England by the River Tamar.  Cornwall is a land of one-lane hedgerows blanketed in wildflowers; mythical piskies; wild ponies and herds of sheep wandering the moors; tidal pools and estuaries; Neolithic stone circles; and Iron Age villages.  From the time of the early Bronze Age, Cornishmen have mined for copper, silver and tin down into the earth … and out under the sea.

Since kaolin, used for porcelain and later paper, was first discovered in Cornwall in the mid-16^th century, the china clay industry pitted the moors and altered the horizon with their white mica waste tips standing proud like gleaming pyramids on the uplands.

 

While Cornish tin mines are now slowly rusting into the granite landscape and china clay tips have all but disappeared, replaced by modern mica plateaus, the people of Cornwall are as strong and resilient as their ancestors. Working fishing villages hold dear to their culture while embracing 21^st century tourism. Celtic crosses and ancient stones still stand watch along rocky cliff paths and yellow gorse lined moorland trails. Yet deep in the woodlands, where moss covered stones lead to pre-Christian wells, and hillsides of blue bells are walled by mountainous rhododendrons, one only need to quiet one's heart and listen - for the flutter of wings, the gurgle of springs, and the Spirit of God all around.

The exhibition runs through October 20, 2013. For more information, visit the St. Louis Artists' Guild website.