Emerging Surfaces

This is the finished piece! I love to work with found objects and recycled materials when I work on my more sculptural pieces. In this case, I used munitions packaging that was made to protect mortar shells.

My husband brought these to me from the trash at Fort Bragg. I cut them at an angle using a hacksaw then mounted them with layers of
caulk and gel medium. I followed that with several coats of a rubberizing spray, textured spray paint, more gel medium, and metallic acrylic paint. I'm happy with the end result.

This sculptural wall hanging is a wooden panel covered in canvas that's 20" x 22" x 7".

Waiting and Trusting

I read the Bible a little each morning before I face the day. Prayer certainly helps me get focused and centered on the important things in life. Today I was in Psalms and I came across a highlighted passage that I wrote "Dec. 6, 2000" next to.

Psalm 27:13-14
"I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!"

As I reread that passage my heart swelled with emotion as I remembered all that I was going through during 2000. I had just moved to England to pursue a Masters degree. Before leaving the States I pretty much gave away all my supplies and emptied out my
studio. Choosing a life of working in a museum instead of being a full-time artist (a gal's got to eat after all). I knew going to England was what I was supposed to be doing; I had prayed about it a lot and I knew it was time to move out of my comfort zone. In Missouri I had a great job in a gallery, great friends, and a great church. In England I felt lonely, cold, broke, and listless because I didn't have any space to create artwork. Over time I made friends, did some artwork, traveled, completed my program and headed back to America with high hopes of landing that cushy job in a Museum.

Because of Sept. 11th there were a lot of cutbacks in the arts and people were really holding on to their jobs. I applied for anything related to my field but just couldn't break in. I was living for free with a friend (and wearing out my welcome), driving my mom's car (she needed it back), selling donuts in the mornings, selling burgers at Sonic in the evenings, and donating my plasma three times a week just to make ends meet. Things seemed bleak but I would go back to that Psalm..."Wait, I say, on the Lord".

I was so stressed out I didn't even have the creative energy or space to do any artwork...this left me feeling even further away from myself. It was a hard time for me. I kept thinking, "God, where are you? Have I missed Your guidance here".

It got worse! I ended up joining the Army to at least pay for my student loans and get a steady paycheck. The Army was tough but I learned a lot about myself, achieved my goal of paying off my student loans, and even met my husband.

Today, as I read that Psalm I can honestly say that yes indeed, God has had His hand in it all, guiding me and ordering my steps. He has been faithful. I can trust Him when His word says to be of good courage. This is a true testament -- I do see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. My time is now. He has answered my prayers beyond measure. He has given me more than I could have dreamed at the time of Dec. 6, 2000. I have a huge studio, all the supplies I need, an awesome apartment to live in with my wonderfully supportive husband, opportunities to show my work, fellow artist friends at ACME, I'm debt free and living the life of a full-time artist. Wow, God is so good.

And they said it couldnt be done...

...Well at least one person did. It gets very hot in my studio. Yes, there is an air conditioner but I can't bring myself to spend the extra bucks to use it...yet.I decided to install a screen door instead. The windows are for light only, they don't open--and to come into my studio, I have to push open a heavy sliding glass door. I love the glass because it lets in tons of natural light. And, one might say "just leave it open and come and go as you please". I did that for a while but every fly, mosquito, and other flying bug known to man swarmed me. There's some big winged thing perched in the window right now that I can't reach to swat at. It's watching me, I swear it is! Creepy!!!
So I took up the cause of the screen door yesterday. Since I ride my bike to ACME, I pretty much had to work with what I found on hand. Luckily I had everything I needed, including a bit of screen I found under our house.Needless to say, it works like a charm. And to the naysayer who under estimated what I'm capable of....don't let my screen door hit you in the ass.

Beach Bum

After a week of 8 hour days in the studio it feels great to have a day of play.  We kicked it off with a long bike ride to Wrightsville Beach (11 miles there....plus a three mile detour....then 11 miles back for a total of 25 miles).  It's 97 degrees today so when we got to the beach we couldn't hardly wait to dive in (although the water is still a little cold for my taste).  What a great way to get refreshed before heading back.  We did make time for a yummy coastal lunch at the Airlie Garden Seafood Company.  My shrimp burger rocked!  Then we stopped for some shaved ice at Rita's Ice Custard Happiness.  We'll probably cap the day off by meeting up with some friends or watching a movie.  My kind of day!

Acme exhibit to showcase diverse work of 22 artists

Image: "Owning the Sky", mixed media painting by Leslie Pearson

Acme artists share work in downtown Wilmington studio this weekend

By Isabel Heblich, Correspondent
Star News, Wilmington, NC
Friday, April 11, 2008


Eccentric, prolific, beatnik and terrific, the work of Acme Art's 22 artists also is romantic, explicit, sarcastic and "inter-scholastic."

A spring cleaning of the soul, the fruits of a long gestating winter in Acme's studio building on Fifth Avenue in downtown Wilmington will be exhibited 1-6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday with a reception 6-9 p.m. Saturday.

Acme founder Dick Roberts, whom many pegged as an abstract painter until his recent photography show, unearths some dark, grotesque, comical collages from the early '90s. They spin strange fun-house narratives between antique lace, cut-up credit cards and spray-paint stencils of what looks like a freak-show fat-lady wrestler and a naive 1950s couple whose male-half has a criminal smile.

The little art-birdie, who whispers ideas around the old warehouse, covered its bases and brought painter MJ Cunningham to bat with large, abstract colorfills - "Dick and I kind of switched roles here," Cunningham said in a studio interview. Her three-piece series Analogous Red, Blue and Yellow, inspired by a class on the subject she is now teaching at Cape Fear Community College, is somewhere between observing curious cell-functions under a microscope and deciphering a primal tally system.

Artist Richard T. Wright creates innovations in perspective by drilling holes in the frames or shadowboxes of his glass collages, making intimate peep hole views into the nostalgic rhetoric of his life.

We see word play from new arrival Leslie Pearsons' pieces: a hyper-realist portrait paired with scrawling poetry like passing clouds through her re-occurring "bird on a wire" image. A Jasper Johns-style word collage repeats the block letters of "Blue" in red.

Photographer Arrow Ross contributed prints from his recent Acme show, documenting the Hindu and Buddhist sculptures from Thailand. The sharpness of shape in these super-saturated altars give them a supernatural, dizzyingly unreal fascination.

Groomed landscape painter Chappy Valente shows new strength and unexpected sensuality in watercolor and oil figurative painting.

Painter Pam Toll, master of sensualities, contributes collages and paintings that are, as they so consistently are, unspeakably beautiful encyclopedias of dreams of the heart.

New arrival sculptor Adrian Willis, contributes a minimalist, intellectual metal re-creation of a Kiss in 12 inches. The simple bent steel bars have a provocative effect changed by the reflective sphere heads, taking the minds of the kissers away from each other and into the brainy, skeptical world. "It's part of my four-letter word-series," Willis said in the studio. "There's a few others."