Chandler Wigton, our Associate Director of Events & Studios visited Deb in her studio to learn more about her and her practice!
What new art are you working on currently?
What is your process?
Deb’s work is a combination of collage, sculpture, found objects, painting and installation. She works with three-dimensional objects, oftentimes adhering them in different configurations to two-dimensional surfaces, usually wood. The surfaces often give the objects a space and world to exist in. Many of the found objects have been gathered from the natural world and include; shells, seed pods, snakeskin, and wood. She is a gatherer, the collected objects are an integral part of her art practice. Some examples of handmade objects include beautiful castes of turtle shells, seashells, and other animal bones, using thread grass, paper pulp and glue. The objects are beautiful both in their concept and their execution.
The work explores her relationship to the life cycles of the natural world, and how we as humans are a part of this process. On the two-dimensional surfaces, she is using and referencing old, even ancient imagery, working in a layered way so that the underneath surfaces are just as important as the top surface. They inform one another and show through. The surface quality and texture of the two-dimensional surfaces have become a huge part of the work, and evoke the passage of time, life cycles and decay. She then incorporates collage into these surfaces referencing the female body, plants and animals. The color palette is often muted, but very unified and thoughtful. Recycling and reusing what she has is also important to her.
Intuition, experimentation, and process drive the work more than the end product. She migrates freely from one piece to another, working on many pieces at once, listening and responding to what the piece is speaking. She sees herself as a midwife, witnessing and guiding the process of becoming, living and dying. There is a definite flow to her process and the work in her studio is remarkably unified.
Deb’s background is both in art and in acupuncture. She has an MFA from Florida State University and has a background in installation and photography. She eventually went back to school to study acupuncture and has maintained a practice for 25 years. Both acupuncture and making art are practices that require deep listening. In the art practice it is more open ended – gathering, arranging and altering are part of listening to the voice of the materials and what they are trying to say. So too, with acupuncture – a resonance with the pulses, stories and presence of a person, with the desired outcome being that of honoring health. Both deal with the life process, the natural rhythms of the earth that have guided generations for eons.
What is inspiring you?
Water is an inspiration. Deb is a swimmer and talked about how her thoughts, feelings and dreams flow with ease when she is in the water. The natural world and its cycles are a huge inspiration – seeing a deer, a flower speckled meadow, or a cloud hugging a mountain in a certain way. The three colors trilogy, White, Red, and Blue by Krzysztof Kieslowski is an example of a film that had an impact on her.
What music have you been listening to lately?
Phillip Glass, specifically the soundtrack to the movie, The Hours. Kitka, a group of women singers who sing Eastern European songs, that are atonal, asymmetric rhythms and dissonant. She listens to classical music, world music, drumming and the blues. Instrumental music, or a language that is foreign creates more space for interaction.
She also finds the open-endedness of poetry to be inspiring. You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World by Ada Limon. She is currently reading Sisters of the Earth by Lorraine Anderson, as well as The Creative Act by Rick Rubin.
