The Mother Tree

A friend mentioned in conversation this week that she didn’t see that I had a “signature style.” She said my work was “all over the place.”

I thought about it after we hung up, because I had always been told that, whether I was drawing, carving or painting, people could recognize the work that came out of it as mine.

No, I don’t stick with any one medium – I get bored easily, for one thing, and for another, if I want to “talk” in color, a carving won’t express what I want to say, so I move to a medium that will give me the color expression I want. And if form catches my interest, a two-dimensional medium won’t get me the results I desire the way a hunk of stone will, once carved.

So even though you can’t say, “Angela is an impressionist oil painter,” or some such label, because it wouldn’t encompass my acrylic paintings, drawings, alcohol ink paintings or bronzes or stone carvings, you in fact could say that, “Angela has a “signature look,” or maybe even a “signature mood.”

I like to think of my work as powerful, voluptuous and whimsical, all at once. If it conveys the emotion and delight life holds for me, that’s a good thing, and enough for me.