Aurelia Ford
The greatest influence in my life as an artist was my father, Baldwin Ford, who encouraged me to paint, draw and create as soon as I could hold a pencil in my hand.  He was a musician, composer, playwright, and artist.  In painting, he primarily focused on encaustics, which I am also now experimenting with.  The sculptural quality of the beeswax adds dimension to the surface with which I paint diffusing light through the pigment.  Painting with the melted wax is challenging in that, the wax begins to harden the moment it leaves the hear source requiring me to work quickly adding drama with texture and bold colors. 

I have also been influenced by the paintings of El Greco with his dramatic use of lights and darks and elongated figures; and Salvadore Dali (who happened to share my birthday, May 11) because of the Surrealistic dreamlike state and again, elongation of images, which is the effect I am trying to achieve in my study of images reflected in bent or warped mirrors. 

I am intrigued by reflections; the bending of images in the ripple effect on water, in the extended and contorted images in mirrors, glass, and metals.  I am interested in the contrasts of light and shadow whether the color or black and white, and the distortion of the images in reflections.  Any one image is but a reflection of a whole range of realities.  The sources of imagery can be endless.