JEAN'S "RANDOM THOUGHTS" ON A WAY OF WORKING

Color! Color! Color! It starts all about color. The gorgeous jewel-like colors of glass on metal. The pleasure of looking through transparents to the underlying metal, to what happens beneath the layers of color. Line, pattern, texture, contrasts quickly become an integral part of the whole.

Sometimes I feel as if everything I do turns into landscape. And I do work with landscape often, approaching it in several different ways. There is the literal landscape -- in-your-face landscape -- in which I start with sketches or photographs I've made. Historical landscape is another approach, using photographs and archeological diagrams of ancient sites. And then there is the abstraction that landscape becomes when seen from an unfamiliar vantage point: the patterns of land noticed from a plane window, for instance.

The most exciting work begins with ideas, not materials, not techniques, not outwardly imposed commissions. Then I am free to choose from all the enameling techniques and materials how best to illustrate what I am trying to say, making materials and processes work for the idea.

There. That's my art-speak for the day.