this is life

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been inspired to balance the properties of art, math and movement —and their combined spatial relevance. Weaving universal meaning into all that I do and create, I am moved by the texture of things that have history, anything that displays age and experience, that hold the evidence of life and of time: rusted metal, old tools, fossils, tree bark, aged skin, weathered paint and urban walls that have been layered with posters, graffiti and wear.

In all things worn, I see the efforts that people have offered, which much too often goes unnoticed, un-championed and un-rewarded by anyone —especially SELF.

Therefore, human experience remains my muse where historically, emotionally and psychologically layered, previous happenings remain as residue. THIS IS LIFE.  The evidence of past events, the bread crumbs and markers that not only color the present and get passed on to the future, are what shows us the way back to understand where we currently are. 

Previous work layered life’s ideals in veils of paint, now it’s my current medium that layers rural and urban wear in Levi’s denim jeans. Memories of my mid-Western childhood tie me to this material with respect for the history that is strongly linked to American life, equality, leisure— and the notorious industries that cotton, slavery, the industrial and sexual revolutions were.

Worn denim is a beloved and strong icon that has become intimately woven into our lives. It is texture, content, context, color and mood. In it, I’ve come to appreciate the subtle traces of life that are left behind in how we’ve lived in our genes/jeans. My dissected denim fragments are harvested, stretched, tied, twisted and reconstructed as building blocks for symbolic structures to communicate the efforts and equality in human material that we ALL are.