I believe in beauty and the triumph of the human spirit, over adversity, over struggle. My work explores this living spirit through its solitary experiences, whether the intimate relationship with nature, or the unbidden power of the past, in either case, the inner life of our most sacred self. Our personal reality determines how we affect and how we are affected by the outside world. Thus, what we believe becomes real.
Lately I’m interested in having a conversation about dissociation, childhood abandonment, loneliness and ultimately the durability of memory in forging who we become as adults. Finding peace in a time of fear, often imagined, informs the paths we take. We are our thoughts, our words and our deeds. Once an action is executed, it is permanent. Or is it?
Working with mixed media and a variety of materials, I cut, cover up and reveal images that are at once painful and reassuring, honoring my own cut up and pasted childhood. I take disparate tokens of every day life such a fabric, paper, glass and wire, things often discarded and recycled, to patch up the holes of loss or hurt. I create screens or curtains to shield the ugly view, perhaps protect the present from the past, or perhaps to secure a likely future. The decorative or contemplative are woven in tandem with illusions of dreams, faint memories and symbols to create the idea of our best, imperfect selves.
