So begins Stanley Kunitz’s poem, The Layers, in which he reflects on his experience of aging, loss, and the limitations of time.  Having passed the threshold of seventy I, too, am grappling with the experience of aging— what changes and what abides, what to retain and what to let go of, how to adapt to a myriad of losses, how to hold and value the preciousness of what is, how to reassemble the elements of a life in a way that is meaningful.  Both the content of this work and the process of creating it represent an attempt to engage these questions. As I work these issues out artistically, they have bearing on my life and vice versa.

While these pieces are a departure from my previous work in the way they are structured, they are also deeply grounded in that work. In the past, I have worked in a variety of media,  many of which are represented in this body of work as well.  At times I felt myself drawn to acrylic paint, at other times to encaustic, and sometimes to collage— the medium I began my artistic career with.  Many of the pieces combine media, though in a more simple way than my previous work.  The highly textured surfaces of that earlier time have given way to the dimensionality of the form itself. While the media vary from piece to piece, the forms remain consistent in their irregularity and dimensionality.

In his poem, Kunitz speaks of his losses, his resolve, his darkness and his light.    He is using his art to make meaning of and transform his experience.  In doing so, he is living his injunction, “Live in the layers, not on the litter.”  This body of work is my attempt to “live in the layers” and to struggle with both the sorrows and the joys of aging.