Transformations, 1989
I work in an
expressionistic manner using what I refer to as transformational images, which have evolved from work done in 1979,
when I began drawing figures with masks either being removed or falling off the
face. These images, I find, coincide with my having stopped drinking, obviously
a cathartic period in my life.
It was also at
this period that I began dealing with personal problems and my Viet Nam
experience. These experiences will, in some ways, probably always have an
effect on how I view things. Masks of my own were falling away, which enabled
me to begin to see the masks of others and realize for the first time that I
was not the only one who had problems; that I no longer had to be afraid. At a
time when my peers already had families, I was just learning to look at myself
in the mirror and see myself. I was speaking my own name without discomfort. I
was beginning to look at others and really see them. The work, though
admittedly strange, told many stories that I myself was blind to for quite a
few years.
After years of
sobriety, and some major changes in how I live and how I perceive the world
around me, the work has changed.
The change has
been a slow evolution. Color took three years to begin to work. The rich inky
blackness of the graphite began to diminish in proportion to the first subtle
colors I applied, until 1983, when at last the light out-shown the darkness and
the graphite line delineated only areas of color.
When I returned
from Viet Nam, like so many others, I was a bit twisted. I was a house filled
with irrational fears, beliefs, and symbols. Wind-blown paper would send me
running; crows became many things; I never remembered dreams and detested the
wind; I wore bells on my wrists so I could hear my parts when they moved; I
slept in my clothes so I'd be ready to go nowhere at all. And I once recall
answering when asked my name and where I was from, Nobody. Nowhere. I must have been a wonderful companion.
During this time
I found a huge pad of newsprint and began to draw, trying to exorcise the
demons that had made me strange to myself. My work has never stopped being
therapy. With the help of family, friends, and my work, I have drawn myself
straight, though some might argue to the contrary after looking at some of my
more outside work.
Transitions are a
part of my life that I now actively seek, seeing transition as growth. I
welcome change now; before, I was afraid of it.
The masks
continued to fall away, the thrust of the work kept evolving until, one evening
in my studio, I realized that I could draw motion—a single figure in
action. This coincided with some Native American myths that I was reading, and
my old nemesis, the crow, took on a new twist. We became one while remaining
two. Approximately four years ago, I began actively to carve masks from cedar.
Having no teacher
available around me, I began spending every cent I could on books about Native
American carving techniques and artifacts, as I hold the Northern tribes to be
world class carvers, every bit Rodin's equal in sculpture. Through that
research to learn carving, I was bombarded with mythic images. Then the
drawings began to transform rapidly into split figures, two faces creating one,
man and animal sharing bodies, symbols with numerous applications.
My beasts from
within that had made me so uncomfortable with myself previously had become
visible. Now when the questionnaires arrive concerning delayed stress syndrome,
I throw them away, feeling that when I needed them they weren't there, and I
sure as hell don't need them now!
When working, I
usually begin with a subject in mind and will sometimes use images from
newspapers or periodicals for models. I work methodically and intuitively. I
first lay out the form using boxed and rectangles. Then I apply a light area of
pigment, pastel, or graphite, and then begin to erase and reapply line and
color.
From this point,
the work becomes much like watercolor painting, in that a certain amount of
control is given over to the erasing. Once the major portion of the composition
is completed, I begin to work back in with pencil to further define forms, add
texture, and heighten the visual tension.
I enjoy using
bright colors and earth tones mainly because color was so hard for me to come
by. Also, I live in an area noted for its annual rain and fog. I find color
healing. An old friend of mine buys outrageously colorful (often bad) prints
and bargain art during the summer, against the dull grays of the winter to
come. It makes her feel better.
I use Koh-I-Noor
graphite, a number of brands of pastels, from expensive to inexpensive and all
different varieties of drawing pencils.
Due to the
process I employ in creating my work, I require a heavy stock paper. I have
found Stonehenge rag printing stock right for the job.
I try to use the
best possible materials and have found that the added expense of acid-free,
neutral pH paper and framing materials is money well spent in producing the
best work that the artist can provide a market.
714 NW
Davis Street Portland,
Oregon 97209 503 222
1142 www.FroelickGallery.com