Working on this collection of paintings and sculptures was like living in a dream world. It allowed me to visit a wonderland when ever I wanted to. This collection is a pilgrimage of the soul. I choose to  transform each snail’s shell into a house,
each slightly different than the other. Expressing the individuality of all beings. The houses are a metaphor for the facade people choose to show the outside world. While inside each there is a soft vulnerable being, moving ever so slowly with their ego in tow. The snail represents the slow steady progress of a soul as it travels through life. I was thinking about the ego and the ego’s baggage, what we choose to carry from place to place and what we choose to leave behind in our constant search for a peaceful place to call home.

As this work unfolded in my mind the snails began to take on characters of there own. I sketched and painted, then sculpted and photographed the sculptures. Working back and forth between mediums. Taking the pictures of the sculptures and creating new sketches from them allowed me to see the lines and shapes of the sculptures more clearly in the flattened two-dimensional form. In the process I was constantly going back and forth from the two-dimensional work to three-dimensional work. It was enlightening. As the snails migrated through my mind and on to the paper I found myself making my own slow journey home.

The first sculptural I made in this collection is  Penelope. She was a hand-built version of the snail I had been sketching in my journal. As I turned the idea around in my head I realized there were many ways to construct these sculptural forms. The next few snails I choose to throw the components of the house on the wheel. I created cylinders that would be transformed into the houses and closed forms for the roofs. Throwing and altering these forms, I was able to get a different shape that I could not get hand-building. Once each snail was constructed I went back and added all kinds of little details, doors and window and small window gardens. This is when each of the sculptural snails really got their own personality.

The paintings started with “On the Edge”, which is really a continuation of the previous series I was working on. I painted this piece because that is where I was at the time, standing on the edge looking into the abyss wondering how I was every going to cross it. In the top of that painting above the abyss is the sun shining and bringing hope. That is what the rest of these piece did they brought me hope. I worked in watercolor sketching in the characters then painting them with masking fluid. Once the masking fluid was dry I flat washed colorful backgrounds on to the paper. When all of that was dry I went back in with watercolor pencils and paint, to add each snails personal details.

To to purchase or see more of the pieces from this series please visit the Full Circle Gallery Etsy site. Or contact the gallery at (850)6362-8041. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them!