Artist Statement

In my work I explore themes of identity and meaning making. More specifically, I am interested in how we collect and organize salient moments, experiences, and memories and solidify them into constructs of identity, conceptualizations of objects, beliefs, and narratives about ourselves, others, and the world. Incorporating an assortment of media, including acrylic paint, collage, charcoal, and colored pencil, I develop multiple layers in an effort to match the repetition and depth in the way we process the small fragments of ordinary life into a greater sense of meaning.

Bio

Art is a form of self-expression through which I can express myself more truthfully and vibrantly than I have ever been able to do with words or music. As an adolescent, I was enthralled with illustration and drawing, working primarily in graphite and colored pencil, and this led me to declare an art major before even starting college. After two semesters, I became convinced I was not an artist. I dropped the major and, for the most part, left art behind. I dabbled in music and literature searching for the self-expression I’d lost, but neither got into or came out of my gut like visual art.

Through the years I kept the art in me alive with infrequent episodes of creation, but nothing intentional or sustained. Fast forward many years, many jobs, an MBA and Ph.D. later, careers as a college professor and a small business CFO – to now, when recently, I’ve left all that behind and have committed to becoming the artist I always wanted to be.

I work somewhat instinctually, trying to guide the work instead of controlling it. Periodically, I step back to consider the quality and effect of the composition, line, color, etc. As such, where a piece starts is never where it ends, and the most satisfying works are the ones through which I’ve learned something…about myself, about orange, about how different kinds of papers react to different media, about how accidental marks seems to appear at the right time and in just the right place. These days I’ve traded my pencils for mixed media and collage and continue to experiment with other forms of art like papermaking and sculpture.