As a child, I remember being told that there wasn't an artistic bone in my body. I never dreamed of becoming an artist. Instead, I channeled that creative energy into reading and became an avid student of mythology and storytelling. Often I would travel to New York to spend hours at the museums viewing works by Magritte, Rauschenberg, and Cornell. Later while living in Atlanta, I became fascinated by the work of self-taught outsider artists who worked with found objects and recycled materials. These influences all came into play when I began working in assemblage.

My work is about the process of assembling objects to tell a story; a visual metaphor. It may begin with an object, such as an old shoe or a piece of rusted metal. Or it may be a photograph, fragment of poetry, or remembered myth that starts the ideas flowing. The working process is intuitive. As I work, I sift through collections of objects, selecting and combining them with paint and images often working quickly on three or four pieces at the same time. Objects come from secondhand stores, garage sales, local beaches, junkyards, and roadsides. When gathering these objects I respond to shape, texture, design, and material.

The materials beckon me long before its known how they will be used. It may take months, even years, before collected debris and found objects find their way into a piece. Mirror, colored glass, and resin are often used to both reflect and obscure details. The viewer is invited to seek out the hidden layers within the piece; to look into the glass and around the corner; to see a bit of themselves reflected in the mirror.