I've always been a writer, albeit sometimes (often) the non-writing kind.

About sixteen years ago I started teaching myself to use a camera, quit teaching high school English and dove headfirst into running a portrait business. Quickly, I noticed the images I loved most were the ones that broke the rules- the experimental, emotional, cinematic, ethereal, funky, hazy, layered, twisted, surreal, creative ones. 

When I started my MFA program I thought I'd be doing more of those sorts of images, only with the benefit of an art / history / theory / academic foundation. (Wanta see how that went? My graduate artist talk is posted on the videos page.) It may help explain how I wound up making the work I am doing now.

Recently, I have set aside the photos altogether to focus on words alone, although the work is still visual—somewhere in the realm of collage and poetry.

Each piece is an exploration of the beauty and bias of language through cut and pasted words and phrases from short stories and poems by American authors and poets, especially texts that deal with issues of race, gender, immigration and language.

I have tried not to overanalyze the work or worry about my inexperience with this new medium, but I have started looking into other artists who have taken an interest in language, not only text-based artists like Barbara Kruger, but also those who interrogate language like Lorna Simpson, as well as those who incorporate it into their art practice as needed like Roni Horn.