Tabula Rasa – a clean slate. I love the utopian idea of starting fresh with a completely unbiased mindset, leaving behind everything that cannot be repaired or healed or overcome. I had the great opportunity to make a literal Tabula Rasa piece when I was invited by the Masur Museum of Art in Monroe, LA in 2022 to be part of an art auction based on slate tiles from its original 1929 roof. The slate came off the roof during a recent hurricane. Also, the museum had a fire not long ago, severely threatening their permanent collection. The slate fundraiser was to help them deal with the financial aftermath.

Instead of just painting the slate tile I decided to create an appropriate context for it. Within a deep hand-built box frame I painted a fiery stormy sky. I layered edges of book pages from a colonial fairytale (Robinson Crusoe) to create the ground; I like how this narrative is hiding while being so completely present. I used heavy duty hardware for mounting the slate into the frame and placed a square rod for additional support and a few toy wheels underneath to make it look like a rolling vehicle.

I crowned the image with this fabulous dancer, Arthur Mitchell, founder of the famous Dance Theatre of Harlem.

Mixed media assemblage: original 1929 slate roof tile from the Masur Museum of Art, acrylics, edges of pages of a vintage Robinson Crusoe book, magazine clipping, ink, wooden rods, found plastic toy wheels, roof nails and other metal hardware, in hand-built wooden frame, 23” x 23” x 4”

Fine art prints available soon.