LizartSeattle

Studio in the Forest

I was a theatre gypsy, working for twenty five years at major theatres. I worked as a costume designer and technician, traveling throughout the United States. During the last eight years, I worked tailoring custom period menswear at various theatres in Seattle, in addition to working in costume crafts making all the odd pieces required for each show, from an Elizabethan collar adorned with giant syringes, to a wire birdcage for a restoration wig.

Toward the last half of the theatre years, I started making traditional handmade books, incorporating 3 of my interests into one art form: writing, illustrating, and figuring out how things go together. I made an open edition of an alphabet book, that continues to sell whenever I make more, and two other illustrated children's books. But now this book-making journey has evolved. My books have become one-of-a-kind sculptural book-like objects.

When I begin a piece, I consider the mood I want to convey, creating a focal point to invoke that mood. As I work through the process, I build the peripheral elements in support of the message carried therein. The images, the manipulation of paper, metal, leather, and other elements, create a cohesive world, within which the viewer travels, finding emotions, memories, desires, and dreams quite unexpected, when first he began his journey. Be not afraid... You might just find your heart's desire.