Where are you from?
My family was a Navy family, and we moved constantly -- eight times before I was seventeen. It’s tough to feel a connection to place through history or community when you’re only there for two years. We were always stationed near the ocean, usually the Pacific. It feels funny to be landlocked in the Midwest now.
What’s this stuff about?
These are about abundance and excess. I think a lot about decoration and consider these decorated. They’re very indulgent -- I choose my animal subjects mainly based on their aesthetics and my personal enjoyment of them. I guess when it boils down to it, these are also about the earnest, silly, friendly feeling they reek of.
Advice to a past self?
You don’t need to think of a smart reason to make something. The universal human urge to create is enough, and patterns of interest and meaning will show up whether you mean them to or not.
Favorite living painter?
Kevin McNamee-Tweed; I first saw his work at Devening Projects and fell in love with his funny intimate ceramic paintings. His confident line and flattened colors are beautiful. “Sorry Mug” is my all-time favorite drawing ever.
Music that sounds like your work?
Good Vibrations from the Beach Boys
Influences outside of art?
My saved folder on Instagram is full of absurd pictures of turtles, snakes, frogs, and abandoned bathtubs filled with overgrown weeds. I collect plant fragments from walks and seed packets from Walmart that I know I’ll never plant. Recently, I’ve been reading Taschen’s Book of Symbols and looking at the Peterson Field Guide to Birds.
Why stick to paint?
I love the immediacy and speed of painting. It’s a medium that lets me work spontaneously and directly. I love the feeling of pushing paint around and the evidence of the hand that’s always left behind. In the future, I’d love to learn ceramics for a lot of the same reasons.
The rectangle?
A space to fill with things, like a plot of land for gardening. Or a page in an encyclopedia with lists expressed through images placed there because they fit.
Instagram? An amazing place to collect art influences and engage in community. Especially now during the pandemic, I feel the localization of the art world is broken and we are all makers spread out in a rural way. I value Instagram as a place that allows me to still be a participant.
Who are your art grandparents?
The ancient artist who made the fish mosaic in Pompeii is my hero. I also love Pierre Bonnard and his use of color and cheerful light. Two of my favorites are “Cherry Tart” and “Two Poodles.”