Red Plastic Plates

I paint interiors from memory. I choose a room that I can recall in detail, like my parent's dining room in Red Plastic Plates. The original artwork is made from cut paper, which I paint by hand on my studio floor, then cut into the shapes that make up the room. The cut paper pieces are even flatter, more graphic and labor-intensive than my paintings, yet more physical, due to the layers of paper; up close, you can see the glue and little imperfections that don't exist in my paintings. Living on the East Coast made me acutely aware of the aesthetics of my midwestern upbringing. My experiences in New York and at Yale University cast my family's home and lifestyle in a different light: a pragmatic, mundane (and rather flat) sense of beauty, unburdened by high ideas or refinements of style. The combination of my earlier working-class tastes and the later-acquired, intensely cosmopolitan awareness of style has shaped who I am as a painter. Red Plastic Plates captures the humor of the culture clash I sometimes feel when I introduce new people to my family. My husband and stepson were visiting my parents' home in Cincinnati for the first time, and my mother, to my horror, insisted on serving dinner in the dining room on red plastic plates with plastic cups, plastic silverware and paper napkins. I love my mother and can now thank her for creating the image for Red Plastic Plates.