Conk You Feel the Dirt Painting

I’ve made art for as long as I can remember. Mom was the owner of the Sea Hag, where she bartended until three in the morning. I sat at the booth in the back of the bar collecting daily treasures. I learned how to make clothes for my dolls using printed flour sacks and colorful fabric samples from the post office garbage. I would staple, pin and glue. My work process hasn’t changed much except for using better quality materials. I exchanged glue for acrylic mediums. I use acrylic mediums on photographs and pull the paper off to create transparent images. My fabrics are cheesecloth, silk and lace. I use acrylic paint as a dye. Color is an important component; I believe in its healing effect. These lightweight materials are of sheer durability. The materials allow the spirit of life to gracefully flow through. I work intuitively while having an ongoing dialogue with the work. The meaning of my Norwegian surname, Strom, means “current”, which is a metaphor for my life. I want to be the fish flowing down stream, going wherever the current takes me. A zest for freedom is core to my life and work. A waitress taught me how to draw the figure. For decades I painted dancers. To capture movement in time, I needed to use photography. The life energy created a bond during our photo shoots. There is an intimacy that occurs, and the resulting dialogue after the sessions stays with me. My models are dancers and performers who took their talents to New York and became professionals. I continually go to life drawing sessions to keep the observational component alive during the process of drawing from photos. During my Master's program, I wanted my art to embody dancers free from the constraints of borders. My passion is the energy of the figure in motion.