Artist Statement

I create inspired by my visual accounts of the circumstances at that moment. My studio practice is heterogeneous—I search for visual experiences and ways to best achieve the visual I desire. My palette colors are inspired by my surroundings and often I isolate a subtle rhythm or pattern that I find. Utilizing the tools of printmaking, I draw directly on top of the matrix with locally found materials, i.e. the threads, shards, clippings, pulps, beads, wires, etc. that I collect that day. Each object creates a mark that is pressed or embossed creating unanticipated patterns of positive/negative across the picture plane. The prints I create have carefully constructed textures while at the same time allowing improvisations intrinsic to the printing process. By printing only one image from each plate’s passage through the press, I challenge the medium and subvert the idea of multiples.

As an artist, my work is intertwined with the place where I make it. The included images are of my recent time in Florence, when the tourists were out-swarming the mosquitoes. Florence inspired me with its worn, cobblestone streets; the color of winter reflected in the Arno, the bakery’s grid of cooling racks, the colors of faded fresco pigments and vandalized ancient mosaic remnants. Each object that crossed my path, piqued my interest and inspired me to draw with found segments of screen, plumber’s hair wire, threads, yarns, paper pulp, and crushed, glass beads. Drawing with objects I found littered in the piazzas, neglected in the corners of building entryways or given to me by vendors, I created my visual interpretations of life in Florence. My compositions are organized like the panes of stained glass in Florentine churches: handmade and placed, but minus lead strips and the window frame.

Work completed in North Adams, MA has the colors and shadows of a summer in the Berkshires. Images produced on the “monster” hydraulic press have a compressed figure-ground relationship similar to a microscopic slide sample. Under the pressure of eight hydraulic jacks, I pushed and pulled various finds from Yankee Dollar stores into the drawing tools of my work. Continuing investigations similar to plein air painters, I research and draw from local light, contemporary landscape and architecture, then take my studies into le studio de l’artiste.

Born Scenery Hill, PA. Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

EDUCATION
2002
Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT
M.F.A. Painting/Printmaking

2000
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
B.F.A. Painting/Drawing
B.S. Education (Social and Cultural Agencies)
Minor in Art History (modern and contemporary)

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2008
Workshop Coordinator, The HeArt Project, Los Angeles, CA
Instructor, UCLA Extension, Los Angeles, CA

2007
Artist Workshop Presenter, Studio Art Center International, Florence, Italy

2005-2007
Gallery Educator, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA

2006
Visiting Artist, Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, NV
Visiting Artist, Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, Las Vegas, NV

2005
Visiting Artist, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT

2002-2005
Museum Educator, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

2004
Assistant Professor of Art, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
Visiting Artist, Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, Las Vegas, NV Artist Presenter, Art & Learning at Yale, New Haven, CT

2003
Lecturer, Yale University, New Haven, CT
Visual Arts Committee Member, ArtSpace, New Haven, CT
Committee, International Festival of Arts & Ideas, New Haven, CT

2002
Teaching Assistant, Introductory Painting, Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT

2001
Teaching Assistant, Basic Drawing, Yale School of Art
Teaching Assistant, Artist Materials & Techniques, Yale School of Art
Gallery Development Associate, Untitled (space) Gallery, New Haven, CT

2000
Cultural Education Researcher, LOKV—Netherlands Institute for Arts Education