My Story

My whole life has been spent searching. Scanning the ground for shapes, textures, colors that are seemingly out of place. I began collecting these items at age 5. Glass, rocks, discarded pieces of broken toys, string, anything shiny or sparkly. What was regarded as trash by most, called to me to be collected. I am intrigued by the journey of these items. Where did they start? How did they end up here? What is their story?

At age 17, I found my first pile of bones; a baby deer. My love for bones was initially sparked by a bobcat skull that my dad kept in the garage that he found at age 14. I would periodically make trips out to look at it and touch it; marveling at the elegant beauty of it. I wondered about its journey too. How old was it? Where did it roam? How did it perish? Spending time with this skull, I developed a reverence for bones. I felt a sense of peace and calm when I held it. It was an intimate, vulnerable moment between me and what remained of a magnificent beast.

I played with using these two mediums separately to create two different types of art pieces. In my last year of college I finally married the two. Bones and found objects both are representations of the passing of time. The decomposition process that leads to only bones remaining and the weathering/breaking down of man-made objects discarded into the elements. The imagination can run wild creating histories for all the different components.