A little about my materials

I will use almost anything to make art.  Over the years I’ve created work with manufactured street sign aluminum, left over street sign vinyl scraps, 100-plus-year-old paper found at my family farms, strangers’ curbside refuse, stains made from tea and flowers, tea bags, clay, ink, paint, dirt, rocks, furniture, photos, glass, fabric, books, type writers, wall paper, catalogs, wire, glue, trees, dried flowers, and hair.  I will occasionally even buy art supplies, although I prefer not to for both environmental and fiscal reasons.

As a kid I started sculpting literal mud into animals, then covering them with paint and Mod Podge and expecting them to last more than a week.  Hard lessons.  Recently I’ve focused on more traditional ways of working with mud–that is, using clay to create vessels I draw on and sculpt into functional art pieces.

I never really drew more than doodles, but a spark of an idea pushed me to learn to draw as more than a means to an end.  Currently I’m continuing this practice to make large floral drawings inspired by my wildflower collections while bike riding and exploring.

A few years ago I went all in on non-representational abstract industrial wall pieces using aluminum, paint, and vinyl.  This avenue lead me to a group show at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art here in KCMO and the Gifts of Art Program at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

My many series, although not obvious to many viewers, are all closely related to each other in concept and process.  Mostly, I’m just always trying new things, new ways of making marks and designing a space, new ways of using old things and reinventing banal objects around me.  I’m always trying to grow, be it leafing out or deeper roots.