Freedom EV 1/9

In this series, I experimented for the first time with an etching process called aquatint. I used an 8 x 8 inch square area to play with the layering of collage and ink. In the edition, shapes cut from monotypes are overlaid upon each other, to form a language of multiplicity and interconnectedness. I created these works during busy months in which I was dealing with crisis after crisis at my non profit. Yet each week, I would enter the refuge of my studio to take small steps towards completion.

This series of experimental editions marked the beginning of a larger body of prototypes that were intended as learning opportunities to evolve my mark making. Similar editions created with the goal of testing and learning were Interdependence and Plurality.

At the most fundamental level, I am a mark maker. Making art is a way to record my own story for future generations. I make a marks on surfaces - marks that are informed by own mastery of tools and by my own choices. Every decision in my art practice is informed my lived experiences, by my references of the world around me, and my freedom to have a visual language that is uniquely mine. In this series, I gave myself space to play with color, texture, shape, and line, and to better understand organic forms of nature. It would take me nearly 9 months to make a breakthrough in this form, which happened the following year at the birth of Intersectionality II.