For many years my work revolved around ideas of mutable histories and inconsistent narratives. Within this I visualized the storage of memory fragments, the possibility of retrieval, the potential for multiple interpretations, and the personal and institutional desire to edit, rewrite and obscure history. Combining various alternative photographic processes and materials with traditional approaches to painting, I developed one series after another that evoked both private and public “histories.”  A selection of this work can be seen in the section "Shadows and Archives."


"Channeling" marks my entry into borrowing modes of expression from others.  I started with an outsider artist named Jeanne Tripier, an extraordinary woman who lived in France in the mid-20th century.   Institutionalized for most of her adult life, she produced intense drawings and embroideries that echoed her imagined conversations with a range of both historical and fanciful figures.  As I was writing my dissertation, I would take drawing breaks and scribble in a corner of my bedroom, matching her madness with my own.


"Art in America and Me," followed the completion of my Ph.D.  In an effort to bridge the gap between writing and the studio, I painted small watercolor versions of every illustration in my dissertation.  Upon finishing this group of miniatures, and motivated by outside events I couldn't control, I started ripping up my collection of Art in America magazines.  I was looking for ways to express my anger and frustration, but also found my own history in the pages of my twenty year collection of this periodical.  Living in New York City evolved from this tantrum.  Culled from magazines dating 1984-1996, this work makes literal and metaphorical references to my life during this period as well as tracking art world topics of the time.


In "Borrowed Expressions"  I returned to the idea of borrowing the expressive capacity of other artists in an attempt to internalize and learn from their intensity as well as carry on a kind of conversation.  I used their drawings as a jumping off point, making choices that can have multiple layers of meaning or just simple formal appeal.  The combinations are both serious and seriously tongue-in-cheek.  


These imagined conversations reflect of the trajectory of my practice, which investigates the intersection between art and life, making and feeling. For the last several years, the focus has been on aging and metaphorical illusions to the process of change and the attempts to maintain usefulness and value.