"The architecture has to be an object of your memory.
When you summon, when you conjure the memory,
in order to make it clearer,
you pile up associations the way you pile up bricks to build an edifice.
Memory itself is a form of architecture."
— Louise Bourgeois
Whenever I leave home, I always seem to return with objects that I find. I can spend hours rediscovering collections of clutter: a dirty feather; a crinkled note from third grade; a pale ribbon; movie stubs; my grandmother's old stamps; a tear of tea-stained lace; a rusted piece of flattened metal; a scrap he scribbled on. Then I'll take photographs, write notes, make lists, or photocopy an image that catches my eye. I am constantly rearranging and moving these collections around — from the walls to the floor, and back again — to create compositional problems to solve. These scraps are little relics, pieces of a story. They subtly conjure eclectic and personal associations that infuse and enhance my work.
The resulting mixed media pieces evolve from a process that balances intention with chance and intuitively calls for a diverse use of painting, drawing, and sewing materials, found objects and images. They contain a strategic fitting of drips, brushstrokes, marks, and collage images and patterns, which are stacked intricately on or next to another, and through each other.
In my work, I enjoy exploring the movement and assortment of mark making, as well as the movement inherent to a compositional awareness. As the layers develop and build, the complex interplay of paint, materials, and texture ultimately forms a balanced organization.
In the words of Louis Bourgeois, like the process of conjuring memory, these complex layers are built like "a form of architecture." They are microcosms filled with color and detail, which hold a wealth of connotations in their depths. I have also explored what gets left behind, making my own associations with death, loss, memory, and layering. The subtle ways in which the unnoticed can permeate and take root in the unconscious is what drives my investigations of seemingly transient images and their staying power. My work demonstrates my fascination with memory, and more specifically how time fades its clarity but cannot fully erase it.
As an artist, I strive to create lasting proof of my experiences and the emotions that are inextricably bound to each moment. My work is this proof that something has been accomplished, that something happened, and that something is different: the mail came; I creased a post-it; bruised my hip; poured white all over a canvas; left a footprint; didn't make my bed... This evidence of change — of self — is what I will leave behind when I am gone. This is a mark of my existence in this world.