An Old Gypsy Woman, Figuratively Speaking
My perception and filters are the sum of my fartsies! Factoring epilepsy, kinesthesia and a couple of NDE’s into my personal equation, it is easier to understand how a mathematically challenged creative might be drawn to quantum physics. At least, easier than not being aware of those factors. My first experience with entanglement happened when I was seven years old. I was extremely active and athletic until I was about 12. After that, I had many lonely hours to fill in my bedroom due to seizures. Reading, drawing, crafting, music and writing were my life. Both of my parents were creative and our family encouraged music, art and crafts. We went to church a LOT when I was little. But, by the time I was 10, Dad had broken with the church. Since I was a teen, life has been a cascading series of events that simply don’t fit into any untangled form of conventional explanation. Like Alice in wonderland, I stepped through a door… and that is merely the beginning. I live a supernatural life. I eventually got control of the seizures, through meditation, diet and lifestyle changes. Early attempts at mind over matter were less successful and really just turned me into a very strange kid. Science and spirituality, creativity and consciousness, merge happily only when I am working in the studio or engaging nature. I’m not comfortable in a crowd. My senses tell me things that do not agree with what people say and do… particularly in groups. Additionally, few people believe I see things from the back of my head that don’t match what my eyes tell me. Doctors have a wide range of interpretations of this and other anomalies I live with. Sharing my perception in general conversation tends to either make others uncomfortable, or make me feel like an oddity. Creative Career Building I began my career in New Orleans in the mid 1970’s, with the first sale. I met and needled an old purveyor of portraits on Jackson Square until he agreed to teach me in exchange for my labor. I learned how to cut, stretch and prepare the various grounds, fetched, carried and washed whatever he needed until the day he passed. Jackson Millueux was my friend. He nicknamed me “Mouse.” When I sold that first painting, he said I had graduated and called me friend, thereafter. I can not recall a time when he used my name. Not expected to live independently, or for very long. I threw myself into experiencing everything, fully. No thrill was too dangerous. I travelled to experience the world, but not as a tourist. I wanted to know the spirit of the places I visited. This brought me into contact with many creative people and larger than life characters, providing many adventures and a richness of stories.
"Like Alice in wonderland, I stepped through a door… and that is merely the beginning."
Gaining perspective and purpose: Buckle up, Buttercup! In 1981, my daughter Amanda changed everything. I spent the next 12 years fox-hunting an education as an adult student and working mother, often with her at my side. In 1984 I was diagnosed with cancer, with a prognosis of “Get your affairs in order.” But, I was not willing to leave my precious daughter. Fortunately, God agreed and I was blessed with divine intervention. So, I took a different approach to education. I had to prioritize opportunities. This put me on the gypsy path. No roots for seekers. But, I found it all, in abundance. In 1993 in Kansas City, our home and my studio burned to the ground. Dale Eldrid, the department Chair at KCAI, died in a catastrophic flood. I wallowed in grief in the St. Louis area, with the assistance of my three brothers, for a few years before moving to Edwardsville, IL to finish my degree at SIUE. After that, 1998, I went to the pacific northwest for a Master’s degree, but never got one. I got a partner, Pat. (He is easily amused.) Together, we moved all over the Pacific Northwest and the Northern Plains, flipping houses and careers for 25 years and counting. We added side gigs to every adventure and always found a place where the worst of the weather went around us. Today, With over 50 years as a working artist, the process is always changing. I add tools and techniques, new mediums, new styles, new methods of expression. Of course, there are influences and sources of inspiration. Influences I love the old Masters of realism and the impressionists, which I discovered even before New Orleans. But, I was also influenced by Rockwell, Benton, Georgia O’keefe and Alex Grey, among others. They each saw things in different ways and expressed them in new ways. I celebrate them all for what I discover in myself through their work. Process I am still exploring how to express colors I can taste, the ‘yods’ and ‘waves’, people as light and particles, events that are available only to me, through kinesthesia. My Legacy work is centered in quantum physics, particularly particle entanglement, as a human experience. My landscapes are about evolving relationships between energies; reduced to what the eye can see, because I have yet to find a way to paint the energy. Everyone’s perception is unique. By now, I think most people are aware that the red I see is not the red you see, though we may be looking at the same red. Our brains interpret what our senses tell us. My senses are hard wired to taste the red, to produce sensory patterns associated with sound and touch that others do not experience. I have produced many works in an attempt to share this. I consider ‘Wing Dreams’ to be the best, and it was one of the first efforts. I have painted what it feels like to paint. It turned out to be a not bad portrait of a woman in a head dress that doesn’t really resemble me. All these efforts fall under the “conceptual art” category, with a few “Impressionist” landscapes on the side. For me, transparency is the root because I experience things in layers. Luminosity because the energies have a value system and movement because they do. I include things to be discovered over time and elements of mystery, because life is like that. I hope you will join me in this adventure. It is really quite remarkable! Thank you, for your interest and your time.
Professionally, Diana has always contributed to building arts communities — because the arts contribute to our systemic wholeness of being, bringing people together to celebrate culture and find common ground. She has served several Art Associations, two Cultural Centers, and half a dozen or so galleries, wearing many titles: artist, director, publisher, editor, collaborator, and teacher.
In the Studio
“The process is where I come to understand and know myself.”
“I paint in transparent layers, because that is how I see the world. I utilize intense color, because the spectrum of my human experience is intense. Calligraphic lines sweeping between levels of awareness represent progressions of ideas, trains of thought, or patterns of travel.”
“Over five decades, with half of that flipping houses, I have built many studios. Ranging from basement dungeons to converted barns to colonizing a six story warehouse to taking over the family room. (That one had a fireplace... yummy.) Light is always my first consideration. The second is dust and spills. <---secondary.”
The Process
“I respond, so much, with so little."
The concept of an uncarved block comes to mind. Every choice, every mark, is both potential and limitation. With every creation, something is also destroyed. With every change, something new comes into being. But something else falls away.
“I use fluid, curvilinear or fractal forms versus angular or harsh characteristics, because forms are fleeting: energies are shifting. Clouds of potentials are shifting through forms, changing everything as they go.”
Every layer is a decision about what the painting can hold. The transparency builds up, the colors deepen and breathe. The final surface is never flat — it moves, it shifts depending on the angle of light, the time of day, the viewer’s position in space.
Watch the Work Being Made
A rare look inside the studio — process videos of paintings, polymer work, and sculptural explorations.
Physics Portfolio
Portfolio overview — physics of paint and form
Commission a Work
Diana takes a limited number of commissions per year. Custom paintings, sculpture, and installation work for private collectors, public spaces, and corporate environments.