JS: Give us some insight into how you construct meaning in your works.

ETS: I have a set of ideas in mind at the outset, but I also like my imagery to prompt discoveries. When people are open to the works, the paintings continue to generate ideas after I complete them. I always start with a feeling. CASTLE began with a sense of peacefulness and stability. Three figures are at peace within this form, a vessel, a head that contains thoughts as in someone’s mind. Each figure is in her own cavernous space. They are protected, maybe from what’s outside, or maybe from each other. The figure at the top is surrounded by teeth that look like ramparts of a castle. I rarely depict figures staring directly at the viewer. It’s more of a portrait. She is confident and all three figures are serene. They are as one; they are in harmony.

JS: Your work is often likened to Old Master paintings for obvious material and formal reasons. What affinity do you have with earlier traditions?

ETS: I sometimes look at older works for inspiration. I initially conceived these jumbles of figures with empty space around them based on a copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Battle of Anghiari. Hands wielding axes, and other implements, recall da Vinci’s weaponry. But in my work, they are symbolic rather than historic. My figures are at odds with their circumstances, they move in disparate directions, struggling to stop or redirect the revolving construct that confines them.

JS: What makes your work contemporary?

ETS: There are no new emotions or basic ideas in art; there have been scientific advances, but people are still basically the same. What makes my work contemporary is that I am interpreting the world that we live in today.  For example, CLAIM  is about autonomy over one’s mind and body. It features bones from the hip, pelvis, and skull. It’s about losing rights over our bodies, with the repeal of Roe v. Wade, and our intellects, through book banning. I wanted to create a work about claiming personal autonomy. The hand with the flag is trying to stake a claim. The hand dropping the yarn evokes defiance. Pussy hats were knit as a sign of protest for women’s rights and symbolism of women knitting in defiance goes back to A Tale of Two Cities. Or it can also be understood as a sign that someone is expecting a child, like knitting booties. The hand grabbing her arm has effectively taken away either option.

JS: You used various cohering elements – bone, wood, earth, and water - within each discrete system. How does the nature of each material affect the relationships between the figures?

ETS: Inside the spheres of water, the figures are more joined. Water, in its depths, suggests the unknown. But it is also a source for life, which can be connective, even placental. The watery sphere in COURSE CORRECTION suggests adaptability, whereas within the bone substrate of CASTLE, the figures are cut off, not interacting. In THICKET, the figures are interwoven like branches. There is some interaction, but the roots and earth solidify the positions of the figures, so the trees act as walls that divide them. I wanted an organic element with figures hidden in it. But they all want to get out. Their world is not at peace. They are trying to chop or burn it to get free. An eagle eye is looking out from the interior; the space is opaque and unknown; we can’t see inside, in contrast to CLAIM which glows from within. The owls represent surveillance and judgment. With human-like masks around their eyes, they possess human-like knowledge. They are something to be wary of, they are watching.

JS: How suspenseful…change is coming. Regarding change, one thing you sometimes change across bodies of work is the size of your panels. Let’s conclude by discussing your use of scale. Here, we are considering, not only physical dimensions, but what I understand as ontological and psychological dimensions as well. When painting smaller panels, you tend to work entirely from your imagination, whereas for larger paintings, you work with live models. Would you elaborate on those two modes of working?

ETS: Dürer often engraved small-scale imagery from his imagination, fantastic stuff that couldn’t have been based directly on nature. My small-scale compositions are also straight out of my head. I let myself get more carried away in bending reality when I paint them. They appear looser in style, more cartoon like. The small paintings are more storybook, like action-figure play sets that I imagine. I can use everything in my brain’s toy bin to create them. When I work in medium scale, like in this new series, I feel that anatomy should look really accurate, so I use live models in choreographed poses. The imagery becomes more real, more serious for me. In that scale, I am further externalizing my inner world. That feels like a much bigger commitment. Details are more important, so my painting is more technical.

JS: And you paint in even larger scale at times.

ETS: Yes. In my much larger-scale works, six or eight feet tall, it becomes more about the movement of my own body as I paint. I may return to that larger scale in the future.