MOCHA ISLAND 1 & 2 -2023
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BODHISATTVA CORRELATIONS -2025

The contact sheet I constructed remains whole, while the blank forms from the images that have been “stripped bare” and became elements in the collages that make up
The Chance whale series are backed with silk I dyed in indigo. The title references the actual location of the shipwreck that inspired Melville's "Moby Dick."

I found affinity with representations of bodhisattvas (a person who is able to reach nirvana but delays doing so out of compassion in order to save suffering beings)
I photographed in shrines and temples on my recent trip to Japan.
These figures and the “plank” behind them- a symbolic element known as a mandorla or prabhamandala which are frames or auras that encircle the entire body
of a holy or sacred figure representing divine radiance, spiritual enlightenment, and sacredness, signifying a transcendent reality beyond ordinary time and space. “mandorla”
(Italian for almond) can also be circular, horseshoe, fan or leaf-shaped, decorated, with patterns including flame motifs, further emphasizing the radiating light)
and a relationship to the surfer in front of their surf boards -a pose that often occurs in my work.