Collage

I am working to create things that explain how I perceive ideas that I do not fully understand.

Emotions have always been the driving force and main consideration in what I do and make.

I use historical images as a backdrop for a more abstract form of storytelling. Images from lost cultures, relics, and landscapes, both well-known and extremely ambiguous,

Paper patchwork, patterns, and a textile presence in my work reference my longtime romance with surface design,

Much of my work (made primarily from graphite, gouache, ink, and paper) is narrative, though none of it is intended to be realistic snapshots of any particular time or place.

I did not begin painting, drawing, or making collages until I was thirty years old, and I am almost entirely self-taught. My intense obsessions with pattern, color, and faraway cultures have driven my vast catalog of work.

Each graphite scribble is a treasure to me and I want to bring life back into the material that I use instead of letting it stay hidden, crumbling away.

n fascinated with items from previous generations, especially ephemera. Letters, textbooks, little notes, and journals carry so much of a previous life

This work is often derived from my own photographs and from mapping systems and architectural schematics.

The traditional handmade collage has its own identity and ethics, totally opposed to the infinite possibilities of digital, but this is where the true value is—the challenge of finding opportunities and achieving functionality within the constraints. I combine nature, people, and objects only in order to transmit more complex emotions, thoughts, and feelings.