Secret Lives of Color

Orpiment
Vivitar SnapShot Duo Digital Camera

        This photograph was inspired by the history of orpiment: that “handsome yellow more closely resembling gold than any other color.” In taking this photograph, I was drawn to the way the dock light spreads its golden glow across the water, echoing the same allure that once made orpiment so desired, despite its danger. The light feels almost alchemical, transforming the quiet evening into something both beautiful and uncertain. Like the pigment, it carries a tension between brilliance and toxicity, between what illuminates and what deceives. In this moment, the photograph becomes a meditation on how color can both enchant and endanger, how beauty, even in its gentlest form, often comes with risk, which can be shown through the intensity of the light.

Celadon
Acrylic paint, paint brushes, canvas
9 x 11 x 1

This painting explores the intersection of nature, craft, and mythology through the visual language of celadon ceramics. Using acrylic paint and brushes, I rendered the sea in celadon tones, evoking both the soft translucence of sea glass and the refined glaze of ancient “oriental” pottery. Layered over this are patterns in dark turquoise, referencing the decorative motifs found on traditional ceramics, being a gesture to the way cultural artifacts carry memory and meaning across time. At the center, a female–sea creature emerges, bridging the human and natural worlds. She embodies transformation, fluidity, and the pull between surface beauty and hidden depth. The piece invites viewers to reflect on how art, like the ocean, preserves fragments of the past while continually reshaping them into something new.