When painting, I respond to images from Art History and ones that are being produced today. I create new images that show strong women in a non-objectified way. I also choose subjects that I feel a connection to because ultimately there is a merging of their story with mine, as I am the model for the portraits. I value working from life and since most of my subjects are either mythological or historical, I don't have the possibility of painting them from life. So, I begin with myself, altering my features, but never entirely removing my likeness either. The most important thing is to tell their story in a positive way, to give voice where there may not have been. I become a receptacle for their story. Though these paintings are self-portraits I refer to them as portraits. The subject is the most important thing.

The end result becomes a juxtaposition of different realities. I find symbols that relay my subject's story and ultimately are ones that tell mine as well because I choose them. I like layering meanings to hopefully reach some universal truth. My paintings are collaborations on some level; co-produced with the subject. In Elisabeth and Julie as Juno and Flora, my daughter Flora and I are the models. We are posing as the 18th c. French court painter Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun and her daughter Julie who are in turn posing as Juno and Flora from Roman Mythology. I wanted to do a portrait of this artist as the last painting in my series, the Seven Sisters. I chose Vigee-Lebrun because she often did self-portraits with her daughter, because she was painter for Marie Antoinette, was successful as a woman and painted beautiful portraits. Oftentimes, 18th century portraits depict women in the guise of mythological subject matter. I looked for a story to represent and found an obscure story of when Juno was angry with Jupiter for betraying her and giving birth to Athena by himself. She was telling the goddess Flora, who in turn told her a secret of how she can give birth without input from Jupiter. This is interesting, in turn, because Vigee-Lebrun leaves her husband and travels when the French Revolution starts and continues to paint for other courts throughout Europe.

I am doing the work of a painter but also of an art historian and 21st century feminist. The work seems to take on a timelessness. I am interested in the idea of regeneration, rebirth, resurrection and I think this allows me to observe and recreate history. History is important to me, but I am not bound to it. It is the larger truths that dictate my choices.