My Statement

Nature reflects both the will of the Creator and the passions of humans.
Nature has the ability to express both beauty and tragedy at the same time.
The themes of my work are redemption and resurrection. I use bright colors and high gloss to create contrast with the natural shapes.

I use reclaimed wood and skulls, the shells of once living beings. I want to redeem the unique beauty in each. I use my old wedding dress, full of promise and hope, contrasted with the contours of a skull, the final end. The evidence of what once was, the gracious lines, the heaviness, and lightness---all at once.

I live among a wealth of nature-made sculptures. Every fallen tree or bones of an animal reflect what the once living being had to endure. The environment shapes them into individuals.
To see beauty in the flaws, is the ultimate redemption.

The very fact that paint can affect us is remarkable. Paint has it's own psychic language. I want to light it up. I want to illuminate it, because it seems natural and holy. I want the paint to respond to it's environment, but I also want to control it. I want to let it go, and I want to pull it in.

To watch a painting almost create itself, and then to place light beneath it is a surprise of gesture and depth.



"Here is where loveliness can live
with failure,
And nothing's complete
I love how we go on"

Stephen Dunn, from Loves