BarbaraSpiller-Artist

The term "bricolage" - working with whatever is at hand - best describes my creative process. Whether I am documenting natural phenomena with my camera, printing textured papers or fibers, or seeing new relationships with materials and processes as I work, I am always involved in a cycle of collecting, combining, and often recombining.

I work intuitively, allowing lots of room for chance. I am very drawn to texture and pattern, usually nature-derived: the meander of rivers seen from the air, surf-sculpted sand, ripples in a pond, the slow surge of trees, the star shapes of ground-hugging plants, the tangle of imagery left by the tide. Nature offers an endless succession of "compositions" - things that have grown, blown, fallen, washed, dried and become visually related to one another by chance and the fact of being perceived.

In recent years, my work has begun(and sometimes ended) with encaustic monoprint. I use the process in the same spirit as the natural phenomena that inspire me. Like the unpredictable arrangements that occur underfoot, monoprinting allows me to invite unexpected events to occur on the printing plate. Some works were further developed by drawing directly on top of a print, others evolved through a combination of collage and paint, or entanglement with wire.