We lived in Munich, Germany in 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down. The wall that divided a nation and its people for over 50 years was now removed. How amazing that was.

When I returned to the US, I started thinking about the word “wall” – walls that divide, separate, and exclude, walls that keep us apart. I noticed some signs and symbols of barriers we have or had in our lifetime. In Washington DC, we have the Viet Nam Wall; in Africa, they had Apartheid (wall), which kept the race barrier, and in the US, there are the civil rights barriers, as well as our own self-imposed walls.

Within the works, there are figures that talk to each other and the viewer. The images of the birds represent freedom, but it also represents caution, protection, and independence. You may also notice hands in the work- hands reaching out, hands reconnecting. 

I began working more with experimental mono-printing that incorporated large and small collagraph plates and small cut-out copper figures. These figures/people seemed to want to be in all the works. Some were in harmony, others in opposition, and some just fell accidentally into place.