Artist Statement The things I make help me to make sense of the world: the kind of sense which defies mere words... I don’t REALLY consider myself a painter, however at times my photography or writing will inspire me to make something that can’t be expressed in any other artform. The work exhibitted mostly recently in the Shared Spaces show was an oil painting I did last year to illustrate some writing I did as a parody of Little Red Ridinghood ,(the original copy of which, in all its tattered, chickenscratched, edited, glory is affixed to the back of the painting). I prefer using my drawing and painting as an aside to my other work. The majority of my work is made of mixed media/assemblage: wood, slag glass, ceramic, wax, acrylic and watercolor paints, inks, metal, acetate, charcoal, and found or self-generated image and text. I am thrilled at finding curious objects (some of antiquity) at garage sales, flea markets, on the ground in my path as I walk my dog and at the curb to incorporate into my work. However, my favorite finds are artifacts of natural history that I pick up during hikes at the beach, in the woods, or in my garden. Things such as moths and butterflies, abandoned nests, seed pods, animal bones, fossils, sea glass, rocks, twigs, hatched eggs, moss, pieces of bark, and shells have always fascinated me since I was a little kid because they are the reminders and evidence of time and life lived... life that I can honor through my artwork. There is almost as much inherent beauty in the bitter sweetness of a discarded, broken toy once loved by a child as in the exoskeleton shed by a Cicada and regardless of where these things are found, they all seem to speak to me somehow... I see them both their past and for their future by my own design.