In this digital age I feel drawn to the imperfect: the wear on a photograph, handwriting of repressed emotion, hair half-dyed, what is left behind. In these works I try to honor fragility and decay and weakness. Our lives are made in the faltering and the striving. There are few stains in our animated world, meager proofs of life or dirt or breath.
We all lose something in this artificiality, maybe not initially, when it is still comforting to be in such control but at some point I think we all crave something unavoidably visceral. Something that is able to be held because it exists in the same realm we do.
These works are an interface between the natural and the man-made. Through them I want to give new life to overlooked or discarded things, many of which start with something found in the woods or on the beach and expand outward to explore a memory or a dream. I use the form of the altar to elevate the everyday to the sacred and remind myself and others of the precious and the latent in all things.
 |  |  wasp nest, poppy pods, handmade paper, dog and human hair, yellow butterfly wing, bones of a fan |
|---|---|---|
 died cloth, dryer lint, old paper, gold leaf hydrangea petal, nails, birds nest |  photographs, beach wood, negatives, found bull, me on a swing set with long hair |  painted paper, thorns and string, wampum and rust, wasp nest ( small ) |
 |  cardboard, slides that were torn apart, twigs, wampum, leather |  poppy pod, glass vials, gold thread, notebook found in golden gate from inmate just released, now a free man but not quite |
 fossil, turquoise, pastel and collage |  matches, found baby, found man, fishhook, beech bark, paint and brown paper bag, whale vertebrae |  |
 drift wood, painting, photograph and magazine collage, religious figurines, old friend Julia |  bird skull and bird bones, turkey feather, american flag, bridesmaids, chinese writing found in notebook in SF |  the only origami i know how to make, a painted snake, roman postcard |
 walnut shell, chard seeds, map of canada and russia, deer bones, twine ribbon and thorns |  found frame, red crystal, pottery, painted maps and sheer fabric |  |
 mouse bones ( killed by cat ) , wampum, crab shell, found paper and made paper, string and beads |  paint, bark, sharks teeth and wampum shell |  edges of the negative, leather, gift-box paper, charcoal and lambs |
 peacock feather, seaweed, mexican heart, women and men, fish and hats |  |  monoprint, palm tree bark, a key and leather, the last of the thorns |