About the Artist:
Ms. Allen has been a Southern California resident for over twenty-eight years. She has an MFA degree from The Claremont Graduate University and a BFA degree
from Otis/Parsons Art Institute.
Currently, she is an art instructor of Sculpture, 3-D design, and Art History for Copper Mountain College in Joshua Tree, CA. She completed eight years of
teaching for College of the Desert in Palm Desert, California; has served on the Public Arts Advisory Committee for the town of Twentynine Palms, and on the
Board of Directors for the Morongo Basin Cultural Arts Council, Inc.
Ms. Allen’s artistic career has spanned more than twenty years. During this time, she has explored a variety of traditional and nontraditional media.
Though primarily an assemblage sculptor, she has also been involved with earthworks, altered books, performance and installation art.
Her work has been displayed in galleries and venues in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Palm Springs. Her art is privately owned regionally and
internationally.
Recently in 2009, as Artist in Residence for the Palm Springs Museum, the collaborative and interactive Gardens of Exchange was installed. Her polystyrene
works were showing in the Reduce, Recycle, and Reuse show at the High-Desert Nature Museum, Yucca Valley, CA and the Desert Diversity show in 29 Palms, CA.
She is currently involved in an altered book exchange with five women artists of the Morongo Basin Area.
Artist's Statement:
When discarded outdoors and exposed to the natural elements, beaded polystyrene foam begins a slow degeneration. Water doesn’t affect it much, but sand and
wind do. Particularly, as precisely shaped pieces migrate across the desert, they are affected by factors of time, wind direction and velocity, and
topography of the land. Pieces are chipped and broken away, while larger sections are sculpted - the factory made material is transformed into an
organic-like mass.
On my daily walks through the desert, I pluck the pieces of foam from creosote or cholla, and marvel at the sculptural forms that have been created by the
process of destruction. I think they are beautiful. When I take them to my studio and assemble them with the other found fragments, they begin to have an
architectural semblance. The sculptures are reminiscent of miniature ancient ruins that are worn with time, suggesting a strange culture that once lived in
pristine, plastic dwellings. Perhaps this culture was once vibrant and productive like so many others, before reaching its inevitable demise.
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