My work examines the emotional and spiritual experiences and feelings that are contained in and represented by the physical spaces of the house and home. People and plants both bring life into the narrative.

Synonyms of thought-

form, structure, anatomy, articulation, framework, construction, design, contour, skeleton,

Antonymous ideas-

emptiness, chasm, void, dissolution, devastation, isolation

Digital interactions

I've been more interested recently in how computers have changed our access and mental organization and ownership of images as extant--(ie separate from the reality, taken by someone else, or present in a way that's divorced from the original scene) objects or ideas.

For instance, google street view has pictures of all of our homes. The are generally uniformly well lit, bright, prepackaged to add to the "fun" and image of what a google experience is. But they are our homes, so the same one picture representing them across the world is strange...

Google street view pictures are also part of our daily experiences as we try to go new places...show people what our houses look like so they can come over later... make sure we know which street to turn on. We are visually experiencing these places, before we actually go there in physical reality.

Scan programs too add a logical and yet arbitrary numbering system to files...when scanning individual drawings that are not part of a series, it makes no sense as I change the name of the file, yet the number keeps advancing.

Digital Deterioration

Age, change, and wear are all natural processes which together sum up to the entropic developments which we may observe in the world around us. Many of my art pieces involve a digital element of transformation and deterioration. This is because much of my background knowledge and material interests center around very physical materials such as clay (or wood, or distressed paper, etc) and extensive (involved) methods of changing the form of the materials. Exploring this practice within the digital realm gives me the chance to consider the more metaphorical applications of layers, accretion, time passing within a place, and ways to tell stories visually.

Digital Deterioration, Italian Heritage 2012

From my most recent rewrite

            In many ways, my concepts and my methods grow together and inform each other. The huge, beautiful buildings I portray give every indication of immutability and permanence, but many took decades to finish, if not centuries, and they are all under constant repair as materials succumb to the erosive effects of wind, water, and constant use. I regard these buildings as “living” in the sense that they are certainly aging, and death is far from impossible. In the same way, I consider my materials to be “living” since they change over time, whether it’s clay drying and hardening in the kiln, and then being painted or glazed, or it’s digital images being resized, recolored, and reimagined.

Long term

A finished look is an essential part of the process. Hard to remember, but ultimately very rewarding and fun to do. Making frames, painting, staining, sealing. It's not done until it's done!

Food, language, art, friends, family, nature. How do I incorporate all?

It's about the Bees

Am I just extremely lucky that I think my job should address those issues that I feel most strongly about? Should most jobs reflect our innermost beliefs?

I really think that what is happening to the bee population is incredibly important. How can my art express my view of this interconnected, mutually dependent reality which I think people feel free to ignore? How can our planet survive if we keep pushing and poking at jenga blocks?

The titanic is very interesting to me as an example of human building, design, and triumph denied. Icarus' defeat.

Sometimes art is a headlong rush in five different directions. Deferred gratification is a constant. Applications are sent in, and the results are frequently negative. When they are positive, life is good.

Time is poured into projects, and one by one they bear fruit.

What place does art have in discussions?

Sometimes, art starts conversations. It introduces a new idea or way of seeing reality. I would like to think my art at least continues conversations. Maybe adding my own perspective, maybe introducing new aspects or elements, or linking two things that had not been previously considered together. I do not respond well to art that tries to end conversations. Like a short loop of part of a song, monotony and boredom are big risks.

Things I have lost, things I cannot have or keep, I can still write about, and make art. I hold a world in my head.

Fiction vs Non-fiction

If I were a writer, I would write fiction. I read almost exclusively fiction, and more specifically, sci/fi or fantasy.

My art uses fantastic elements to examine deeper truths. Visual metaphors allow me to hypothesize about human experience.

Consensual Reality

Consensual reality is often neither consensual, nor convincingly real. While the teaching may begin at birth, participation waits until we have achieved either a degree of awareness or autonomy. However, our participation in this "agreement," this picture of reality, is forced by the threat of harmful labels and social sanctions. Labels often include "crazy" "antisocial" "stupid" or "weird."

Yes we have to function together as a society, but must we hurt those who perceive this world in a different way?

Art has the power to change our narrow perceptions of others. Art, film, literature, all have the power to depict other possibilities and ways of seeing the world. If they touch our hearts as well, they may teach us something.

Source Material

Source material is really important to me. Nothing comes from nowhere, and ideas can grow on their own, but a lot of my ideas have concrete sources that I can point to. Working from specific photos often gives me a lot of material even if it changes to the point of being unrecognizable.

Art draws me in, and out. It makes me keep examining myself and the world around me.

Money Jungle

Money and numeric value of artwork and effort is always going to be vaguely based on a series of coincidences and societal expectations, and not on any rational, one size fits all basis. And that's okay. The work has to find its own way in the "market" and the viewers and buyers that it ends up interacting with. The artist must help it grow up and find that place.

Public vs Private

Art ends up in many places. Art in a home seen by the same people day after day is going to be experienced in different ways than art in a museum seen less frequently. It's too bad museums are so hush-hush, where art may be discussed much more vitally when it's hanging in a dining room or living room.

The Trouble with Tribbles

Someday art becomes a million little kitties and puppies that need new homes. The value I put on my objects is my own sacrifice of time, but to avoid being overrun, I must find them new families to live with.

Layers create interest and draw the audience in.