2017 | Installation | varying dimensions | plastic bags, earth matter, shipping tags, cardboard tubing, dust collector, pvc elbows, aluminum, steel, wood, flexible hosing

__________________________________

On New Year’s Day 2016 I woke up with a headache so splitting it took all the energy I could muster to open one eye. Slowly kneading my feet together, as if paralyzed from the ankles up, I struggled to differentiate between what being soaking wet and frostbite must feel like, knowing my hands under the pillow had to be one of the two. Overnight snow had accumulated on the windows, still perfectly preserved in individual flakes, making it impossible to tell what time of day it was in the world outside. The room was quiet and the debilitating smell of lemon-lime soda and dirty socks was a distraction from the slight suffocating feel the collared shirt and ninety-nine cent Mardi Gras beads tangled around my neck caused. Knowing the evidence of the evening before would be uncovered with a few simple swipes I had no intention of finding my phone.

Once up on all fours I opened the back window and crawled out of my fifteen-year-old camper pickup truck and gracelessly slung my bare foot onto the cold parking lot pavement below. The hum of the billboard sized, Route 66 Casino, neon brought a slight smirk to my unpleasant tasting mouth. I took pleasure in my unusual life more than once throughout that seven-hour drive back home.

I get to keep this story, and 157 more like it, and because of that the world can have its dirt back.

__________________________________

I set out this year trying to experience life differently, to see the world as it really was, and to live it as it was unfolding. I have traveled over 50,000 miles in twelve months, by car, train, boat, bus, airplane, gondola, taxi, and foot. Every single time I left my camera at home and my phone in my pocket. I took exactly zero photos of my travels or my life this year, opting instead to collect samples of earth to document these moments of time.

When starting on this durational piece I thought I was creating or capturing something entirely different than what everyone with a smart-phone was, but along the way I realized I didn’t need a token, an artifact, a t-shirt from the gift shop, a photograph, or a bag of dirt to preserve these memories. By holding each place in my hands, digging each experience out from underneath my fingernails, I absorbed every second of it, and that should have been enough.

__________________________________

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND SPECIAL THANKS TO:

Dr. Diane Austin, Director | School of Anthropology – USDA authorized facility intermediary

Dr. Claudio Bizzarri, Professor in Residence | Arizona in Italy – sample security

Colin Blakely, Directory | School of Art – Strategy consultant and intermediary

Carlton Bradford, Associate Professor | 3D – Fabrication consultant

James Cook, Professor | 3D Chair – Committee member

Joshua Doss, Support Center Analyst | Amer-X Security – Alarm assistance

Brendan Fenerty, PhD Student | Geosciences – Laboratory technician

Marcia Grand, Donor | Centennial Award – Electrical funding

Dr. Joseph Gross, Donor | School of Art – Helen Gross Award

Brooke Grucella, Gallery Curator – Committee member and gallery coordinator

Lori Harger, PMHNP-BC | Counseling and Psychiatric Services – OCPD and anxiety therapy

Larry Hoffman, Senior Laboratory Coordinator | Physics – Engineering consultant

Dr. Vance Holliday, Professor | Anthropology and Geosciences – Laboratory coordinator

Katie Killian, Artist – PIR Sensor and electrical services

Catherine Lehman, Administrative Associate | Anthropology – Permits coordinator

Daniel Lehr, Lead Electrician | Facilities Management – Electrical services

Kelly Leslie, Associate Professor | ID – Committee member

Joel Long, Lead Electrician | Facilities Management – Electrical services

Eric Norman, Studio Technician | 3D – Fabrication consultant

John Nufs, University of Arizona Faculty | Photography – Thesis photographer

Marie Roark, Mom – Everything including thesis installation assistance

Shane Platt, Electrician | Facilities Management – PIR Sensor and electrical services

Carrie Scharf, School of Art Program Coordinator – Strategy consultant

Larry Schlotterer, Custodian | Janitorial Services – Concept consultant

Gary Setzer, Associate Professor | FYE – Committee member

Joseph Simmons, Safeguard Specialist | United States Department of Agriculture – Consultant

Cerese Vaden, Associate Professor | 2D – Committee member

Martie Van der Voort, LPC | Counseling and Psychiatric Services – EMDR therapy

Dorian Voorhees, Associate Dean | Graduate College – Scholarship assistance

Anthony Zaino, Supervisor | Facilities Management – Electrical services

GPSC Research and Project Grants – ReaP Award

Graduate College Office of Diversity and Inclusion – Fellowship award

Kira Fournier – Endowed Graduate Sculpture Award

Central Receiving – Logistics and support services

Renovation Services – Estimates intermediary

2017 | 3D objects | 4.5" x 7.75" x 2.5" | plastic bags, earth matter, purpleheart wood, aluminum slab, hooks, acrylic

Series of 25: 3 AVAILABLE

__________________________________

One-Offs, or smaller collectable versions, were created from the larger Point of Know Return, Kansas, 1977 Installation. For more information on that piece please visit the Point of Know Return, Kansas, 1977 page on this site.

2016 | Installation | varying dimensions | artist's urine, oak, acrylic, plastic specimen containers

__________________________________

Specimen is a multimedia installation piece that revolves around the pseudoscience experimentation and analysis of emotional conditions. Being born with Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder not only affects social skills and relationships with others but can also impact every aspect of one’s artistic practice. Frustrated with the methods and medications provided by the mental health care system this piece sets out to better understand human nature by documenting the seemingly mundane or intentionally ignored parts of life.

After sixty days, two hundred specimen cups and forty-seven and a half pounds of urine, connections between environment and self were established both emotionally and psychologically. These links occurred by introspectively analyzing all of my conversations, recording each bite of food and writing out every emotion felt over the two month long experiment.

The data is an analytical entry point into the monochromatic sculpture. Through the use of urine, a ubiquitous material, the work becomes void of gender, race, or class. It stands not as a work about an artist with personal struggles, but rather, on a broader scale, of a species who has more questions than answers about what, why, and how we are who we are and the existential challenges surrounding us.

2016 | 3D objects | 5" x 6.5" x 5" | artist's urine, oak, acrylic, plastic specimen containers

Series of 10: 3 AVAILABLE

__________________________________

One-Offs, or smaller collectable versions, were created from the larger Specimen Installation. For more information on that piece please visit the Specimen page on this site.

2016 | Installation | varying dimensions | found leaves, filament, wood, collected rain water, plastic hosing, locally recorded sounds

__________________________________

I put so much into coming back from living in Italy a changed person, starting most conversations with, “I’m not going to worry about [blank] yet because Italy is going to change everything.” As if being in close proximity to certain things would make me a better artist with an altered perception. Obviously that is not how these experiences work. The lesson or moral comes after the story, not during, and yet I still waited for that warm, fuzzy light bulb over the head, goose bumps on my face feeling which in turn counteracted the entire process.

Dirty Fingernails is a kinetic installation piece that revolves around collecting, analyzing, and documenting the everyday while exploring the symbiotic link between experience and my cognitive state. I focused on the influx of certain emotions, as well as concentrated on the similarities and differences between a ‘before and after’, from who I was then and who I have become. Documenting my journey through feelings, the process of collecting, and the production of time labored fabrication personifies the foreign and familiar.

This piece pushed me to work outside of my normal studio, collect materials not from one store or even one town but from all over Italy. It allowed me to pull away from my current body of work but challenged me to stay true to my practice. While caught up in habits and routines it is easy to question yourself and have doubts about your abilities when stepping out of your comfort zone. This installation, that was meant to represent how futile sitting and waiting for self transformation was, in fact turned out to be the epiphany I was desperately looking for.

2016 - current | Field notebooks | 3” x 4.25” x .75” (x 3+) | notebooks, stamps, ink, wooden box, handwritten text, earth samples

__________________________________

This piece started when I realized how many digital photographs I have on my computer that I will never look at again (almost 80,000 at last count). When traveling I grew tired of wasting so much time taking photos to later post on social media for no one to really give a shit about. I set out to find a new form of documentation, one that allowed me to interact with the experience more rather than less. When everyone else was spending time setting up the perfect selfie or stereotypical sunset, mountain, or beach shot I was sitting with my feet planted in the moment and my hands connected to the place. It was more rewarding than the bit of instant gratification one gets from scrolling through the photos they literally just took.

I like the fact that even though, over time, the landscape of these places will change, there is a possibility that this soil, or earth matter, will remain. There is also a chance that these samples have been around for hundreds of thousands or millions of years. They lived before I touched them, documented them, collected them and they will continue to exist after. The samples hold a much longer life than the photographs dying on my computer, dying right after I click the button on the camera. They hold more history as well. A single photo documents that moment and that moment only. Taking a piece from the landscape rather than taking a picture of it not only preserves that moment but years’ worth of moments that have, and are yet to have, happen. It makes you feel small, humble. A photograph attempts to tell a story where a sample is the story. We attempt to freeze moments with a camera in order to take time later to enjoy them. To be preserved forever, but also to never happen again.  I removed the soil from its history with the landscape, changed the trajectory of its future, instead of just briefly inserting myself into the timeline.

__________________________________

The Soil Journals were a beginning thought that led to a much bigger idea and eventually an installation entitled, Point of Know Return, Kansas, 1977. For more information on that piece please visit the Point of Know Return, Kansas, 1977 page on this site.

2015 | Alternative bookmaking | Box: 14" x 14" x 6", Trays: 6" x 6.75" x .5" (x42) | acrylic, various natural and man-made locally found objects

SET OF 42: Available

__________________________________

Through methods of collecting, analyzing, and documenting, I create works that span from objective preservation to subjective observation. In taking on a participatory role I try to give life back to the abandoned in order to prolong their existence, while also being a spectator and reacting to the deterioration of these experiences. In doing so I am able to create meaning by fighting the temporality as well as find significance in embracing the ephemeral. Whether these objects are representative of themselves or being used as a metaphor, both are commenting on loss and the degradation of life.

Each curated capsule in the (520) sculpture represents a specific place and moment in time. It isn’t until each piece comes together, however, that the importance, or more importantly non-importance, of these specific objects are realized. Using found materials that are the embodiment of Tucson’s (520) area code I attempt to preserve the impermanence while documenting my interactions within an uncontrollable environment.

2015 | Artist book | 8.5" x 8.5" x 1.25" | transparency film, paper, bookcloth, chipboard

SOLD

__________________________________

This book reveals the process that went into, and depicts the steps taken, in researching, accumulating, and organizing the 378 different objects (520) is comprised of. For more information on that piece please visit the (520) page on this site.

2015 | Guerilla Installation | varying dimensions | found local objects, plastic cubes, printed labels

__________________________________

2015 | Performance for documentation | acrylic sheet, metal frame, sex toy, artist

__________________________________

The individual pieces within this body of work include and commented on / intended to:

•  “Uncomfortable” – start a conversation

•  “There Will Be Refreshments…” – change my appearance

•  “I Wanted to Extend…” – change my actions

•  “After Hours in Room 119…” – make assumptions of accused actions

•   Specimen – analysis of emotional state

•  “It’s Decided Upon…” – removal of self

•   My Scar(let) Letter – regain control

__________________________________

This body of work revolves around the expansion of my original “Uncomfortable” wall mural piece (which can be seen in the images on The Studio page of this site) resulting in multiple works with various media, focusing on one central theme. The original incident and all it entailed surprisingly and unfortunately continued to be an ongoing issue in my life and career at that time.

The circumstances and scandals I kept finding myself in became the driving force in the process of my work as well as a never-ending collection bank of content to pull from in its production. Throughout all of the pieces, whether it video, painting, or performance, my intention and message remained the same. Since I was never given an explanation and continued to be left out of the conversation, I used my work to make assumptions as to why and/or how I made and/or kept making people uncomfortable and to start the conversations I should have been a part of in the first place.

__________________________________

"Uncomfortable", "I Wanted to Extend...", After Hours in Room 119, Specimen, "It's Decided Upon...", and My Scar(let) Letter can all be seen on this site.

2015 | Performance for documentation | artist's arm, homemade tattoo gun, ink

__________________________________

The individual pieces within this body of work include and commented on / intended to:

•  “Uncomfortable” – start a conversation

•  “There Will Be Refreshments…” – change my appearance

•  “I Wanted to Extend…” – change my actions

•  “After Hours in Room 119…” – make assumptions of accused actions

•   Specimen – analysis of emotional state

•  “It’s Decided Upon…” – removal of self

•   My Scar(let) Letter – regain control

__________________________________

This body of work revolves around the expansion of my original “Uncomfortable” wall mural piece (which can be seen in the images on The Studio page of this site) resulting in multiple works with various media, focusing on one central theme. The original incident and all it entailed surprisingly and unfortunately continued to be an ongoing issue in my life and career at that time.

The circumstances and scandals I kept finding myself in became the driving force in the process of my work as well as a never-ending collection bank of content to pull from in its production. Throughout all of the pieces, whether it video, painting, or performance, my intention and message remained the same. Since I was never given an explanation and continued to be left out of the conversation, I used my work to make assumptions as to why and/or how I made and/or kept making people uncomfortable and to start the conversations I should have been a part of in the first place.

__________________________________

"Uncomfortable", "I Wanted to Extend...", After Hours in Room 119, Specimen, "It's Decided Upon...", and My Scar(let) Letter can all be seen on this site.

2015 | Live performance | costume, props, projector, video

__________________________________

The individual pieces within this body of work include and commented on / intended to:

•  “Uncomfortable” – start a conversation

•  “There Will Be Refreshments…” – change my appearance

•  “I Wanted to Extend…” – change my actions

•  “After Hours in Room 119…” – make assumptions of accused actions

•   Specimen – analysis of emotional state

•  “It’s Decided Upon…” – removal of self

•   My Scar(let) Letter – regain control

__________________________________

This body of work revolves around the expansion of my original “Uncomfortable” wall mural piece (which can be seen in the images on The Studio page of this site) resulting in multiple works with various media, focusing on one central theme. The original incident and all it entailed surprisingly and unfortunately continued to be an ongoing issue in my life and career at that time.

The circumstances and scandals I kept finding myself in became the driving force in the process of my work as well as a never-ending collection bank of content to pull from in its production. Throughout all of the pieces, whether it video, painting, or performance, my intention and message remained the same. Since I was never given an explanation and continued to be left out of the conversation, I used my work to make assumptions as to why and/or how I made and/or kept making people uncomfortable and to start the conversations I should have been a part of in the first place.

__________________________________

"Uncomfortable", "I Wanted to Extend...", After Hours in Room 119, Specimen, "It's Decided Upon...", and My Scar(let) Letter can all be seen on this site.

2015 | Painting | 60" x 20" x 5" | acrylic, found couch cushions

TO BE COMPLETED SOON!

__________________________________

The individual pieces within this body of work include and commented on / intended to:

•  “Uncomfortable” – start a conversation

•  “There Will Be Refreshments…” – change my appearance

•  “I Wanted to Extend…” – change my actions

•  “After Hours in Room 119…” – make assumptions of accused actions

•   Specimen – analysis of emotional state

•  “It’s Decided Upon…” – removal of self

•   My Scar(let) Letter – regain control

__________________________________

This body of work revolves around the expansion of my original “Uncomfortable” wall mural piece (which can be seen in the images on The Studio page of this site) resulting in multiple works with various media, focusing on one central theme. The original incident and all it entailed surprisingly and unfortunately continued to be an ongoing issue in my life and career at that time.

The circumstances and scandals I kept finding myself in became the driving force in the process of my work as well as a never-ending collection bank of content to pull from in its production. Throughout all of the pieces, whether it video, painting, or performance, my intention and message remained the same. Since I was never given an explanation and continued to be left out of the conversation, I used my work to make assumptions as to why and/or how I made and/or kept making people uncomfortable and to start the conversations I should have been a part of in the first place.

__________________________________

"Uncomfortable", "I Wanted to Extend...", After Hours in Room 119, Specimen, "It's Decided Upon...", and My Scar(let) Letter can all be seen on this site.

2015 | Artist book | 6" x 3" x 2.5" (x5) | mica, found paper, animal remains

All 5 books: SOLD

__________________________________

This six part book series embodies Anubis, the protector of graves and cemeteries, and the Egyptian God associated with mummification and the afterlife while also touching upon the fragility of existence with living things. This year’s body of work went from depicting the removal of power from the artist, as seen in Transitory Illusions, to being given full control over it. First starting out at the mercy of the gods to then taking over as one, so to speak.

The process of collecting roadkill for this series promoted further exploration into these concepts as well as helped carry over similar types of materials into later works such as The Sarcophagus Series and (520).

2015 | 3D objects | various dimensions | found and processed roadkill, acrylic sheets and rods, laser engraved text

All 5 boxes: SOLD

__________________________________

These memorializing caskets commemorate the life and death of the animals used throughout 2015's body of work.

During this time, I, along with a colleague, taught ourselves how to process and preserve locally found desert roadkill.

2015 | 3D object installation | 7" x 7" x 9" (x12) | aluminum, felt, vinyl, hardware, Arduinos, LEDs, photographs

__________________________________

This installation focuses on the transitory nature of relationships, the idea that the people we label as ‘mine’ and the connections that we ‘possess’ are only ours temporarily. More broadly, the concept of ownership to objects, relationships, and our very lives is all an illusion.

Transitory Illusions explores this fictional situation and touches upon loss ranging from emotions to intellectual analysis. Furthermore, does ‘missing’ someone reflect the act of processing loss? How does memory play out in this emotional and psychological processing? This series explores the idea of not being able to ‘have’ or ‘keep’ something and the real possibility that one never really had it in the first place. It takes a look into the voids these transitory or ‘lost’ people and feelings leave behind but also touches upon the necessity of all of it in order for new people to occupy space in our lives.

This concept is achieved through a series of mixed media pieces. Using concave mirrors, light sources, fabricated vessels, light boxes, and photographs of people who have come and gone from my life. Combining these materials and fabricated forms, illusions (holograms) of relationships have been created. Where on the surface they appear to be touchable and attainable they are not actually there. Their presence is only temporary, fabricated.

Each box has its own set of LED lights programmed to flash on and off in a seemingly arbitrary way. This symbolizes the fleetingness of relationships, love, people, and life to evoke, hopefully, a sense of loss and sadness within the viewer. This series, which tricks the eye, is being used as a literal metaphor for how our brains deceive us into believing we ever get to keep anything or anyone.

2014 - 2017 | Preliminary drawings for various projects | hand rendered digital files

__________________________________

With my graphic design background and obsessive-compulsive urges I find that a lot of my art practice is centered on making very detailed sketches and templates. Before each and every project, no matter the size, I scribble my ideas, and later my extensive to-do lists, in one of the dozens of Office Depot brand, canary yellow legal pads I have on me at all times. From there, using little more than the pen tool, I recreate them, to scale, in Illustrator. These files become the Bible that I follow religiously throughout the duration of the project. I have been told on more than one occasion that the plans for the piece were more interesting to look at than the artwork itself. Still filing those away in the win column.

These are just a handful of those templates from various projects over the last few years.

I was able to call this place home for three years while I was teaching Intro to Sculpture and working towards my Masters of Fine Arts degree at the University of Arizona in Tucson. 

2013 | 3" x 3" x 12" (x9) | plastic dolls, paper, wood, 35mm slides, artificial grass

__________________________________

I set out to create a piece that adequately represented my personality, and ex­pressed who I was emotionally, all the while never showing my face. It was constructed out of old art history slides, naked dolls, and tufts of fake greenery. This piece symbolizes the vulnerability I feel everyday as an artist.

2012 | 3D object | 12" x 24" x 12" | Take-A-Number machine, machine tickets, labels, marker, matboard

__________________________________

Feeling the pressures of life and the relentlessness of others requiring my attention one phrase kept popping in to my head: “Take a number.” This sparked the creation of the Take-A-Number thought machine. This interactive piece allows the viewer to have a snapshot of my thought process. The interesting part is that they don’t know, and won’t ever know, the full story. The participants then have to use their imaginations in order to fill in the blanks of where, why, who, or what I could have been thinking about. This piece demands viewer interaction both physically in pulling the tickets and mentally in finishing the story started by my thoughts.

2012 | Printmaking | 11" x 17" (x6) | paper, meat hooks, chicken blood, government documents, metal

__________________________________

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was the inspiration for this piece. This six part documentation series proves that this non-profit organization, whose mission is to save animals of all kinds, in fact kills more animals than they ever help. At first glance the prints look innocent but they are in fact printed with animal blood and presented on slaughterhouse meat hooks. This symbolizes the façade the so-called saviors feed their misinformed followers.

__________________________________

Documents contain:

• FBI file showing their involvement with ALF (a terrorist organization).

• A tax form showing the organization giving money to help pay lawyer fees to a convicted arsonist for blowing up a lab.

• Another tax form showing PETA collected $28 million to save the animals.

• An investigation report showing that they kill 94% of the animals they take in within the first 24 hours of their arrival.

• A document that shows how many animals PETA take in every year, how many they adopt out (12 on average) and how many they euthanized (almost 3,000) at this single location.

__________________________________

Every document, all copy, and every splatter was created using actual chicken blood. The blood was collected in a humane way.

2011 | Photographic installation | photographs, 20 computer monitors, plastic wrap, acetate sheets, Sharpie marker

__________________________________

“These individuals are the psychological equivalent of third-degree burn patients. They simply have, so to speak, no emotional skin. Even the slightest touch or movement can create immense suffering. You are your own worst enemy, you are everybody else’s worst enemy, and they are yours. Period. In short, if feels like you’re being stabbed in the heart on a fairly regular basis, except worse. You want to die all the time. You hate yourself. You hate everyone else. You disgust yourself. You don’t know what to do. You are practically psychotic. You can barely survive in any meaningful way. Life is painful in almost every way, almost all of the time. Basically, it feels like Hell on Earth.”

In this series, inspired by Borderline Personality Disorder, three models’ faces were covered with plastic wrap and photographed struggling to breathe and free themselves. The models were used as patients and the plastic wrap symbolized their thoughts. BPD sufferer’s greatest enemy is themselves and the relentless thoughts that suffocate their lives. The plastic wrap is used to convey the feeling of the hopelessness and terror that their brains, unfortunately, bring upon themselves. The photographs were presented on a looped slideshow and overlaid with acetate sheets. The sheets were covered in red handwritten text.

__________________________________

All text was pulled from actual mental disorder patient's journals legally / with consent.

2011 | Artist book | 5" x 7" x 2" | chipboard, bookcloth, paper, hand-rendered sketches, graphite

SOLD

__________________________________

I wanted to create a book with loose pages that could be removed, reorganized, and added to. I created this piece for my best friend of fifteen years, Lindsay Schneider. Since the two of us were very young we always had a sketchbook that was passed back and forth to one other. It was my goal, with this piece, to create an elegant version of our old sketchbooks that could be expanded upon after the gift was given. The loose graphite drawings inside depict all of the stories and inside jokes we have accumulated over the years.

2011 | Artist books | 4" x 4" x .25" (x8) | paper, chipboard, bookcloth, photographs, found objects

SET OF 8: Available

__________________________________

This piece was made for an open-ended project that had very little guidelines or requirements. The challenge was to create a book of any size, technique, and execution as long as the underlying subject matter was inspiration. I ended up making an eight part series with each of the sixteen-page books containing the things I find most inspiring in life: color, texture, people, vices, smells, bad design, art, and words.