Friday night is the opening reception for the Smith Farm Show. I'm excited to be showing in such a beautiful new gallery, with two such gifted artists and with such a meaningful mission.

Below is the curators statement for the Smith Farm show, curated by Lillian Fitzgerald.

This exhibit Immersed in the Natural World gives us a glimpse into three artist’s personal journeys. Elizabeth Burger, Tai Hwa Goh and Novie Trump create images inspired from nature. Each artist arrives at the work from a unique direction, with clearly distinct motivations. There is an immediacy and presence in the work on exhibit. It is rich in not only as an exploration of imagery and scale but also natural materials, paper, wax, clay.

Elizabeth Burger works with materials found in her rural environment, this gives her to an intense awareness of things that live and die on the land. Using algae, seedpods, roots, reeds, thorn bushes and other natural materials, she creates a series of animal/plant hybrids that are inspired by nature. Each of Ms. Burger’s works on exhibit seems to embody life or death. Contrast Apart , three immense beautiful forms that feel as if they are slowly decaying before our eyes, with her series of eighteen of Pod pieces that positively dance with life. Twisted moves in yet another direction. Created from plastic and paper pulp, it’s orange color and obvious reference to plastic construction barricades turns commonly discarded materials into an incandescent work of art.


Tai Hwa Goh’s art is deeply rooted in nature. She sees making art as the effort to search for her identity, and her art work is the diary recording her experiences. The process of layering tissue thin papers and wax breathes an air of mystery to her work, it reveals and at the same time obscures. The imagery, like the titles are delicately ominous – Suspicious Seeds, Lull, Suspicious Spore. The work has a lovely intimate scale and luminous transparent quality to the color.


Novie Trump’s art is very much about the tenacity of nature. It is informed by ancient myths and inspired by her travel to Ireland, Wales and the Galapagos Islands. Her formal training as an archeologist and love of relics and past civilizations is a great influence on her work.
The poetry in her work, the relationships of light and dark, loss and hope, death and rebirth are explored using rough hewn clay tablets, black birds, delicate egg shells, bones.

In an installation created for this exhibit she describes the Temple of the Phoenix. This work “evokes a sacred place of ritual. A ring of pillars inspired by ancient temples and burned trees encircles a nest of blackened bones, which holds a luminous ivory egg. A fierce bird perched on one of the pillars watches over the egg, which waits to be born. In this piece, iconic images of death are deliberately juxtaposed with images of birth to convey the inevitable cycle of life.”


For more information visit www.SmithFarm.com/gallery.
phone: 202.483.8600
1632 U Street NW Washington DC 20009
Reception 5:30 - 8pm
Regular Gallery Hours will be Wednesday-Friday 11AM-5PM, Saturday 11AM-3PM
and by appointment.

The past three nights have been spent installing at Artomatic. Artomatic ( www.artomatic.org) is a magnificently democratic bi- annual art happening in DC. We take over an empty building and fill it with art, poetry, music and performance art. This year is the biggest and best it's ever been. Housed at 1st St. NE and M St. in a brand new building, the space is airy and light and filled with some fantastic work this year.
Before I left for Wales, my studio, Flux Studios, coordinated 16 other artists to show together on the 10th floor. The show, Coincide, is a collection of contemporary ceramic sculpture by DC area artists. Some really phenomenal work is in our space.
My installation of my own work was a challenge. As Artomatic generally happens with little advance notice, I had no work prepared for the space. Sooooo, I made it all in Wales and carried it all back in my suitcase.
I decided to show the book forms that I made. More photos to follow.

Tuesday was spent installing at Smith Farm for their inaugural show. Here are some shots of the day. It's always so exciting to install a piece that has only been assembled before in the studio. Lillian Fitzgerald, a dear friend and the curator for this show, and Sandy Rossi, the  gallery manager for Smith Farm, were there and indispensable.

Sunday, while waiting for our departure from Heathrow, Chris and I stole into London in the dawn hours and walked around. I never knew London had such gorgeous green spaces. We walked to all of the required landmarks: Big Ben, Westminster and Buckingham Palace. My favorite was the V&A Museum, which had a gorgeous show of artists made books.

The big day finally arrived. The reception for the exhibition of Lee Arts Center artists' work and my solo show of work created during my residency was from 12-2 at Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre. The show was simply beautiful and all of the work was very well received. It was rewarding to see so much hard work culminate in such a wonderful event.

We had a great time!

Friday night we had a lovely dinner at Pete Goodridge's and Melanie Brown's home. Terrific food and great company. Before dinner we had a hike with the dogs through the gorgeous wooded grounds of the estate that they live on and viewed Mel's studio.

Thursday was spent at Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre installing my show of work made during the residency. It was lovely to finally meet everyone that we have been working with remotely: Hywel Pontin, the director of Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre and Hannah Kelly, the exhibitions officer. Hywel,Pete, Hannah and Dean were all instrumental in installing my work for which I am very grateful. 

I ended up installing my dozens of feathers on a red wall in a giant windswept sweep. I was very pleased with the effect and can't wait to explore the concept further on a larger scale.

The center is beautiful and I can't wait to see it all together on Saturday.