A popular series of her colored pencil work was the "feelings"
series, all done in prismacolor pencil and graphite. Dena had decided
to play with a technique of layering the pencils with texture layers
of hard graphite at the same time that she was going through an emotional
awakening. She had pre-conceived ideas about what she was going to draw,
but as soon as she pulled up a new piece of clean paper, she would see
on it what she was to draw.
"Oh, alright!", she'd exclaim, "I'll do it, but I get
to do what I want to next time" That "next time" never happened,
and she was compelled to work on this series for several years, producing
drawings that expressed all of the emotions that she was awakening to
during that time. Due to this visceral process, these images have an archetypal feel to
them.
"Leap" is a piece done after a life altering experience on a rock in Kauai...
