"Last April, I was a resident at the Vermont Studio Center for sculpture. My medium-- books! I cut, sewed, drilled, glued, painted, and filled them. At the Burlington Art Hop this past September, I showed six pieces that I had started at the VSC, but finished this past summer. I also attended a few meetings of the Vermont Book Arts Guild and came up with altered art and altered book ideas to last a lifetime. One of the sculptural pieces I am showing at AIR this winter is an altered book piece called 'Body of Knowledge.' Little by little people are turning themselves into machines, incapable of thinking and caring for themselves without the direction of some outside specialist. This piece, built from encyclopedias I found at the dump, is about the need to look inside of ourselves to find the wisdom and understanding inherent in our own bodies and psyche. This piece is interactive, and all the books open to an inner space that is sometimes dark and scary, sometimes joyful, fun, and wise. Another piece called 'Old and New' is made from a 1940's piece of linen (from my Great Aunt's upholstery scraps) with bean pods sewed on. Besides altered art sculpture, I still enjoy painting, especially scenes from our farm. Another piece I am featuring is a painting of corn (close up) called 'No GMO!' Over 85% of the corn produced in the US is genetically modified, most by adding genes from a bacterium that produces bacterial proteins within the corn plant. While genetically modified corn is literally everywhere, consumers had no say in this decision, there is no mandatory labeling of GM products, and the long-term ecological and human health effects are unknown. Pretty scary stuff! The corn on our farm is not genetically modified, therefore, 'No GMO!' is both a statement and a protest."
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