When I begin a piece, I usually start with preexisting images. I look for pictures that I remember from elementary school history classes or childhood folk tales, images that can’t be questioned because when I first saw them, they were presented as the truth. The images have to capture my memory and they have to feel complete, fully descriptive of a larger story. From them, I’m given my task – I have to “disrepair” them. I have to consolidate my childhood world of historical and cultural fact with a more recent understanding of nuance. The discrepancies I discover between the absolute and the nuanced inspire me most.
My current work investigates our understanding of Americana – especially the plasticity of it. I’m fascinated by how our reading of cultural signs constantly changes depending on both their context and our own, and my work often aims to force that change. I strive to split symbols from their accepted origins and rearrange them, playing them against each other or against their clichés. Deconstructed ideas eventually speak to each other, offer each other guidance or new identity, and then become pieces of a larger statement.
My choice of a miniature scale encourages a viewer to consume the “disrepaired” imagery as a whole, while the titles encourage recognition of its provenance. Additionally, my scale allows image making to become a devotional investment; through such intimate interactions with my work, I cannot help but to revere its sources, my history.