Statement

Artist Statement

I have always been a collector of objects and images, and my art is inextricably linked to this aspect of my life. My collections span countless categories: vintage children’s books, new and old toys, early twentieth century postcards, travel souvenirs, etc. I am drawn to certain things because they represent something or someplace from my life experience, and because they are visually interesting in some way.

For example, I collect Wonder Woman paraphernalia since I grew up watching the show and playing with the doll. I collect Matterhorn or alpine-related things as I am reminded of my favorite ride at Disneyland. These types of items are usually mass-produced and mass-marketed – purchased and enjoyed by thousands of people. These items are thus indicative of a widely shared experience, and it is this specific type of shared experience that captivates me.

On the other hand, I am equally drawn to the handmade. These items are conceived and executed by one person and often laboriously made out of love or friendship, intended as a gift for a specific individual. There might be a special meaning understood only by the maker and the original owner. Even if these things were initially made to sell, they are still rare and usually one of a kind. All of these qualities create in me a profound appreciation.

Consequently, the underlying theme of my entire body of work is the intersection of the mass-produced and the handmade.

This is most obvious in Quonset Hut Historic Site Visitor’s Center and Gift Shop, (2002) in which the gallery space was transformed into a museum and gift shop for an imaginary historic site. I fabricated a history for this site, in this case, a nonexistent Quonset hut. With the exception of some gathered “artifacts” and a cash register, I made nearly everything by hand -- from timeline photos to the hundreds of “souvenirs” available for purchase. My idea for this installation came from observing the way people turn various architectural and historical landmarks into objects of tourism and kitsch. It has become as important to go through the gift shop and buy a souvenir as it is to actually see the attraction -- almost like people need to collect their experiences. I was interested in how traveling to see something of historic or cultural value has become, at least in part, a further extension of consumerism.

A more recent series, entitled Permutations, consists of sculptures and wall pieces created only from readymade craft supplies. This series was inspired by a child’s artwork tacked up in a friend’s office. It was comprised of crayon scribbles on construction paper, with two pom-poms glued in the lower right corner. I was immediately struck by the look of the pom-poms on the wall and thought about using them to create a “painting.” But I also began to think about how these common craft materials are typically given to all of us as children for school assignments and creative play, and are part of our first artistic expression.

While these works are primarily explorations in color, texture, and form, I am also interested in transforming finite ordinary materials into something new and completely different. Specifically, I have limited the media to pom-poms and felt (and occasionally pre-printed fabric). I have spent years collecting bags of pom-poms and swatches of felt, visiting every craft shop I can get to. Each company makes a different palette of colors, each color also slightly varying in shade depending on the brand. The materials are only altered by cutting and gluing, the same methods employed by the child in his/her projects. In this way, the resulting abstract works still retain an element of the familiar, and the viewer has an automatic frame of reference for these “permutations.”