ARTIST STATEMENT, 2004

Growing up in rural East Texas, landscape became one of the many important influences in my life and art. Nature creates a backdrop and gives shape to the moment-to-moment circumstances in the foreground. As my life moves forward, I adjust, adapt, stagnate, renew, dissect, sort out, and re-arrange the endless motion of patterns and events. My art is the by-product of this physical, mental, and spiritual composting.

I've had a difficult struggle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, an auto-immune disease, for the last seven years. Being chronically ill changes how I work, both in process and content. It forces me to become efficient due to the cyclical nature of waxing and waning symptoms. Where I once worked on large, labor-intensive pieces, I now work in a smaller scale, with a variety of media. Sometimes I address my health issues in a specific manner, but my personal tribulations amplify my sensitivity to the human condition in general. I use natureís symbols, my experience, and vision as springboards to convey my message. A niche in a block of wood showing a tree or sunrise becomes the ideal place, a refuge Iíve dreamed of since I was a child. Patterns of cut paper become the rebuilding of broken moments into a new fully realized creation. A single tree against a receding horizon is the lone figure working out their salvation in Godís endless beauty. The ebb and flow of tides and seasons mark the divisions of time and the transitory nature of life. They remind me that nothing really stays stagnant.