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I clearly remember wearing a Miami Vice outfit the Easter of 1986, complete with a white cotton suit, matching¬ (sock-less) boat shoes and hot pink t-shirt. I recall wearing the ensemble, seeing it hanging in my closet and even the photo of that particular April morning. Recently, upon examining the actual photographic documentation of the event, I was shocked to find a different reality. I was posed exactly as I had remembered, but instead of south Miami style, I was clad in a tan polyester suit with matching blue striped clip-on tie. I looked like a more like a door-to-door bible salesman that a tropical detective. I quickly realized that my intense desire and disappointment related to this childhood event (not getting the outfit I wanted) had altered my narrative over the last twenty years. In my memory I had become Don Johnson.

My work is an examination of how disappointment, anxiety and failure influence personal and collective identity. I am fascinated by trivial experiences that linger in memory. For example, the strikeout at the little league game or unexpected breakup, which although essentially meaningless, continue to replay decades later. Likewise I investigate fictitious memories often substituted for actual experience, a memory based not on a pure recollection but derived from a photograph of a place or event. I am interested in how popular culture bonds with fragments of memory to create seemingly strange connections and interwoven narratives of fact and fiction.

The defeat in my work is softened by self-deprecating humor, wry titles and seductive material sensibilities. Within my work personal narratives borrowed from photographs and pop culture references, merge with tactile materials drawn from children’s television and the “cabin culture” aesthetic of the Midwest. My frequent use of “craft” materials, such as felt, pipe cleaners and yarn, refers to childhood art projects, traditionally feminine activities and a desire for sensation in an increasingly digital world. I am also attracted to the tension and humor created through the appropriation of children’s or feminine materials into works referencing primarily male pop culture (Samples from the films War Games or Red Dawn installed as digital text in felt and thumbtacks). The resulting objects and images are imbued with deep personal, and surprisingly resonate collective significance, creating a collage of fictitious recollections substituted for actual experience.

Carrie on my wayward one

2005
dimensions variable

Yeah, My Mom grows weeds

2004

the problem with hoarding is that you are never done

2007

object of motivation because reminder of failure

2007
graphite on paper

Instructions for talking to animals, trees, and natural disasters

2007
graphite and colored pencil on paper

I saw this from a guy who saw it online

2005
acrylic and marker on panel

I feel into a trap set by muppets

2005
contact paper, vinyl, grapite and acrylic on wall
dimensions variable

the more time goes by the less my backyard looks like Hoth

2005
mixed media
dimensions variable