Convergence refers to the coming together; In this case referring to the various currents that converge to become the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located midway between California and Hawaii. The plastic pieces in this mosaic are remnants of this garbage island, which is twice the size of Texas. After becoming part of the GPGP the plastic breaks up, and are carried away from the patch, finding themselves becoming food, swallowed by sea life, creating malnutrition and starvation among them. (Up to 70 % of some sea turtles’ diets are comprised of this plastic}. Other remnants continue to travel to the beautiful beaches of Hawaii, where I was able to pick them up during some of my morning sunrise walks.
 
Many of us mourn the effect of human activity on our planet. In a similar manner, we experience our own convergence—attempting to reconcile the feeling knowledge of what we have created with the desire to, not only clean up our messes, but to transform that mess into something of beauty. This transformation reminds us that we have both beauty and sadness accompanying our human experience.
 
Inspiration for me marries the beauty of the Sierras with the feelings I experience in the moment. Hiking through our forests, I am captivated by the textures that our exterior environment provides, becoming the catalyst for my interior mind play with those textures. Fortunate to have the natural beauty around me, I weave the beauty I see with materials that are often recycled, giving them new life. Often canvases and frames are discovered in thrift stores and yard sales, eliminating the need for further resource depletion. Newspapers, used packaging, tissue, napkins are all the basis for much of the collage work seen here.
 
I don’t always know what I am about to create when I enter the studio. Instead I spend some time, moving, listening to music, or just sitting quietly to see what speaks to me for the first step. That leads to the next step…and the next… never knowing where the finish line is, until I arrive. The joy for me is truly in the process and the journey.
 
Mandalas - The symmetry of mandalas have always had a soothing effect on me. Often I can use a mandala form with which to organize the chaos that exists on the rest of the canvas. Almost anything I see can form itself into mandala shape.
 
Mixed Media - I dislike wasting anything. To this end, a torn shirt, Easter nest grass, a straw…anything… can find its way onto my canvas. It is important to me, not to represent an object as it actually appears in “real life”, but more, what it represents, and feels like, to me.
 
Tapestries - My tapestries are larger paper collages, which could, in fact, find themselves, quite happily, on the floor. They are colorful, representing the feeling of a fabric tapestry with various ethnic influences in the design.