(Click thumbnails above to view the paintings)

Several series on the Bridal theme were begun in December 1999. Thick white paint simulates the symbols associated with weddings in post-industrial America -- the sumptuous perfection of frosting and flowers on a wedding cake, the sheen of a white satin dress. It exploits the dazzling perfected surfaces society creates to clothe one of women’s key experiences, in order to explore the fantasies we create around the bride and the purity of her experience. The works in "Bridal: Something Old" and "Trapped" playfully contrast antique lace and copper and other metal wire with the pristine yet deeply sensual qualities of shimmering white paint. ` In the "Broken Glass" series that combines this white paint with shards of glass, I scatter glass across the paint to increase the lucidity and refractions. "Indra’s Post-Modern Net: Bus stop at 11th and Lombard, Center City, Philadelphia," recently shown at Zonk Gallery, is reminiscent of the illustrious net of the Hindu and Buddhist god Indra: the pieces of fractured safety glass, recovered from a vandalized Philadelphia busstop (at the corner of 11th and Lombard Streets, near the artist’s home) recall the intersections that in Indra’s net are luminescent jewels, each reflecting and connecting everything else in the universe.

In Bridal: Red Mandalas, I dig -- literally, into the paint, with women’s traditional kitchen implements, such as forks, knives, and spoons -- beneath the shining surface of the bridal symbols, tearing away the pristine white paint to suggest the bloody, raw pain of the childhood incest victim. These works focus on the searing contrasts between doting parents’ meticulous and ostentatious presentation of the bride’s purity for the wedding, and the horrific experiences their negligence or timidity in confronting sexual predators may have exposed her to as a younger girl.

Nine paintings in the "Bridal: Red Mandalas" series were shown as part of the exhibit: "Invading Spaces: Sexual Violence Against Women" at the Phillips Gallery at Franklin & Marshall College.