Beth Blakeman

I use mixed media, because I love the feel and the experience of handling glass and clay and paper and ink and pencils and building sculptural things with cardboard and experiencing how they interact, what shadows they cast across my canvas, what designs and surprises crouch within them.
And I love color. Bright, vibrant splashes of vermilion, dotted with orange, or the blue-gray of a stormy sea with tide pools in copper rocks, harboring tiny shells, reflecting dots of pearl in the sunlight.
I love the surprise of colors, the joy of them, the sensation of layers and textures and things juxtaposed, assembled, merged or wed that normally wouldn’t be.
I vibrate to bold, primitive, sculptural, colorful design. Symbols which find a way to express themselves in a single emblem, character, pictograph or glyph, a multitude of words or ideas, generations of beliefs and practices, fascinate me.