I collect and document data: footsteps, the scenes in which a dog appears, the number of days we have been a couple, footage of coming and going through the front door, the number of holy worshippers dressed in Steelers garb, the places my dog has left his toys at the end of each day. Truths and history. Then I figure out how to present it. Field notes or a visual journal of sorts, sometimes highlighting patterns within coincidence.
Meanwhile, I have moved nine times in my life. I begin each relocation as an outsider. As a result, I have grown comfortable participating in an unfamiliar community, not quite yet mine. I almost prefer it, with endless new data sets to sort through. I am bored without this challenging edge of discomfort to conquer. I crave the unfamiliar. This outsider-phase is a time lush with discovery and allotted self-grace, on the way to understanding and belonging. My drive to untangle the local truths, keeps me on task.
In my art, I seek opportunities to surround myself with unfamiliarity and then sort through or learn my way out of it. It has come to the point where it feels dishonest to be creating art unless I am working with a subject, media or tools that are in some way very new or previously unknown to me. This means I often pursue projects without knowing whether I can pull them off. The only way to discover if my goals are attainable is to gather, question, invite failure and create.
My work is idea-driven. Each idea determines the medium, and I then learn whatever skills the medium demands.
And in the end, my art is punctuated by projects. Each body of work separately addresses a specific set of ideas.
My work is born of and explores a positive take on obsessive devotion, channeled productively, my essential motivator. Passion’s sister. In my work, I search for truths and values common throughout multiple cultures. Other themes include inner strength, quiet perseverance; repetition, ritual; the relationship of visual art to writing; mapping, viewer participation, and the choreography of movement.
education
• MFA, MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art), Mt Royal School of Art
• Master’s in Medical Illustration, University of Illinois at Chicago
• BFA, University of Michigan
exhibited in
Berlin, Germany; Seoul, Korea; Portland, OR; Baltimore, MD; Washington, DC; Ormond FL, and Pittsburgh, PA.
artist’s book collections
Swarthmore College and Columbia University, Concordia University’s endowed Holocaust collection, University of Michigan and University of Pittsburgh.
residencies
Becky has been awarded a Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center Collaborative Fellowship Residency and a Heinz endowment to attend Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA). She has served two artist residencies in Germany , one in Estonia and one in Ireland, among others.