STATEMENT OF WORK

I use repetition and the interplay of light, shadow and abstract form to tell stories about resiliency, vulnerability, permanence and impermanence. Poetry, biographies, fairy tales and myths are foundations for creating personal narratives with installations and objects.

Many years ago, I worked in Las Vegas for several months and stayed at the Venetian Hotel. Living in a Casino is a master class in how architecture and design serve to direct and control how one functions and moves in space.  Everything was the same all the time.  To make sense of my environment, I asked the cleaning service to stop making up my room each day and to bring more hotel stationary which I used to make things. I set up two parameters for myself, one that I always started with a circle which reflected the repetitive aspects of my routine and two, that anything I made had to be able to be folded and carried away in my suitcase.  This began a series of installations and a way of working the uses components that are portable and allow me to respond intuitively to the unique physical characteristics of a space.  I also started questioning what was of greatest importance, the integrity and longevity of the object or the experience one has in viewing it.  The installations are shown repeatedly in iterations and although they start with a particular narrative, their stories change in response to the environment they inhabit.  The components are destroyed after each iteration and remade anew for each space.  This emphasizes a sense of the ephemeral and the role of memory in forming perceptions of our experiences.

The most meaningful objects for me have an implied sense of purpose and with this intent align themselves not merely with a use but to those with whom they are associated.  The objects I am making now are what I might call amulets or talisman which celebrate particular people or stories.  Whereas they may not have use in a practical sense, in a metaphorical way they celebrate the experiences and actions of people or characters whether literary, mythical or of importance to my personal life and their unique narratives.  With the inspirations of poetry, literature and myth I hope to underscore our shared human experience.