Altars, Keepsakes, Squiggles and Bows (detail) 2021
I make temporary theatrical site-specific installations using found materials and everyday arts and craft supplies. In an exuberant three-dimensional scene akin to a stage set, I explore sentimentality, absurdity, nostalgia for my 1980s suburban girlhood, and the disconnect between our realities and expectations. Inspired by daily walks at Seward Park in South Seattle, I also try to simulate the experience of wonder and discovery we have with the natural world in an interior setting.
In between labor-intensive installations, I use a stream-of-consciousness process to make drawings and collages to work out visual motifs, color, texture, light, and illusion. My work feels most electric when tapping into the earliest techniques I learned as a child in school and summer camp. I color, cut, draw, tear, glue. Repetition and reproduction are my way of getting to know a subject; by exhausting the possibilities of a single shape, color combination or pattern, I gain a kind of focus and understanding of things in the world.
