How did you get started as an artist?
My first memory of making art was when I was six years old. We were doing cutouts and collages, and my art teacher had selected a cutout I had done by a person fishing for the local museum exhibit. I remember being so excited and my family going to see it hanging so proudly on the wall. It really was a special experience and a memory I treasure.
What themes does your work involve?
My work is rooted in life experiences and is very much emotionally and intellectually driven. I am often creating in order to communicate the emotional heft of a moment - whether that be awe, joy, rage, sorrow.
I’ve always been struck by this quote from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,
“It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream – making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams...No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence – that which makes its truth, its meaning – its subtle and penetrating essence.”
My work is rooted in life experiences and is very much emotionally and intellectually driven
The speaker goes on to say it is impossible. I love the intensity and sadness of this quote. In a way, I am trying to challenge this loneliness via my work. I want to tap into that emotional state as a shared state. Even if we never fully convey our dream-sensations to one another, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t strive to.
What is your source of inspiration?
It sounds a little silly, but my inspiration is everyday life on this planet with one another. It’s really a marvel - how we are interconnected and how we both consciously and subconsciously relate to one another. I am also fascinated by the marvel that is planet earth.
It sounds a little silly, but my inspiration is everyday life on this planet with one another
Can you describe your creative process?
I like to pick up new tools all the time so I tend to be quite experimental. One consistent approach however is top-down. I really prefer to work in almost an aerial format, and I like to encircle the painting as I work.
Do you have any artistic goals for the future that you would like to share?
I have been creating art for over three decades, but I feel like I am only getting started. I’d love to see my work hanging in a museum someday - to go full circle with that little girl who got to see her work on the wall with her family once upon a time.
